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FROM    THE    LIBRARY   OF 


REV.    LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,   D.  D. 


BEQUEATHED    BY    HIM    TO 


THE    LIBRARY   OF 


PRINCETON   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 


JESUS, 


88*24 1936 


.>_ 


THE 


HEART  OF  CHRISTIANITY 


BY 


W.   H.   FURNESS 


From  that  great  Life  flow  forth 

Immortal  harmonies,  of  power  to  still 

All  [discords]  born  of  earth, 

And  draw  the  ardent  will 

Its  destiny  of  goodness  to  fulfil. 

From  the  Spanish:    Bryant. 


PRIVATELY   PRINTED 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESS  OF  J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT  &  CO. 

1882. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://archive.org/details/jesusheartofchriOOfurn 


JESUS, 
THE  HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY 


Such  is  the  overruling  Providence,  and  such 
the  constitution  of  man  and  the  world,  that  the 
sources  whence  comes  a  quickening  influence, 
animating  all  our  best  faculties  and  affections, 
are — great  men.  The  visible  universe,  sublime 
as  it  is,  mightily  as  it  stirs  our  wonder  and  our 
awe,  has  no  such  power  to  move  us  as  the  ex- 
alted personages  who  have  appeared  from  time 
to  time  in  the  history  of  the  world.  These  it  is 
who  reach  the  inmost  heart,  awakening  the  con- 
science, kindling  the  imagination.  Their  ap- 
pearance is  prophetic  of  the  salvation  of  the 
least  and  lowest.  It  is  the  greatly  gifted,  the 
richly-inspired  ones,  from  whom  spring  institu- 
tions,  civilizations,   religions.      Their   influence 


4  JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

long  survives  their  mortal  existence.  Though 
dead,  they  live  on  in  generations  of  men.  So 
that  it  has  been  said  that  the  history  of  man- 
kind is  the  history  of  a  few  robust  persons. 

Among  these,  through  whom  the  imperishable 
life  of  the  infinite  God  is  breathed  into  our  race, 
and  high  above  all  is  he  from  whom  Christen- 
dom sprang. 

This  claim  which  we  make  for  him  may  well 
seem  questionable  if  measured  by  the  extent  to 
which  his  influence  has  spread  over  the  globe. 
The  religion  of  Buddha,  it  is  computed,  is  the 
religion  of  four  hundred  millions  of  human  be- 
ings. So  far  then  as  numbers  are  concerned, 
Christendom  must  yield  to  the  religion  of  Asia, 
and  Christ  to  Buddha. 

But  it  is  upon  no  ground  of  this  kind  that  we 
claim  precedence  for  Christ.  While  the  religion 
of  Buddha  resembles  the  religion  of  Jesus  in 
teaching  that  charity  is  the  root  of  all  human 
goodness,  there  is  a  wTide  difference  between  the 
two.  "  Christianity  is  founded  upon  hope,  Bud- 
dhism upon  despair."  Moreover,  among  all  the 
religions  of  the  world,  the  religion  of  Christ 
stands  alone   and   above   all   as   the  religion  of 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  5 

progress.  Amidst  the  clamor  of  ignorance  and 
superstition  that  still  fills  the  Christian  world, 
and  would  fain  drown  the  voice  of  Jesus,  the  cry 
ever  sounds  from  the  inmost  heart  of  our  re- 
ligion :  "Arise  and  depart,  for  this  is  not  your 
rest."  Accordingly  in  Christendom  as  in  no 
other  part  of  the  world,  knowledge  is  constantly 
increasing,  and  the  means  of  improvement  and 
happiness. 

But  again  I  say,  it  is  not  on  these  accounts 
that  we  hold  Jesus  to  be  first.  Not  for  the  ex- 
tent of  his  influence,  nor  for  the  excelling  wis- 
dom of  his  teachings,  but  for  what  he  was,  is  he 
to  be  thus  exalted,  for  the  power  of  his  personal 
being,  the  unequalled  charm  of  which  lies  in 
this :  that  he  was  profoundly  human.  Men  are 
slow  to  read  aright  their  own  consciousness. 
They  think  that  it  is  the  preternatural,  the  super- 
human, that  moves  them  the  most  powerfully. 
But  it  is  the  human  element  in  Christianity  that, 
amidst  all  our  creeds  and  ceremonials,  touches 
the  heart  most  deeply.  This  it  is  that  sets  fire 
to  the  imagination,  and  it  is  tmq*  imagination 
that  gives  birth  to  dogmas  and  symbols.  Noth- 
ing so  affects  us  as  that  which  comes,  not  from 
l* 


6  JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIAXTIY. 

alleged  preternatural  sources,  but  from  the  in- 
most heart  of  human  nature.  It  is  the  humanity 
which  the  Madonna  and  the  Crucifix  represent, 
human  suffering  and  human  love,  the  tenderest,  a 
mother's, — this  it  is  that  endears  and  consecrates 
those  symbols.  And  it  is  in  his  thorough  hu- 
manity that  the  pre-eminent  power  of  Christ  is 
felt.  He  is  never  more  entirely  one  with  our 
human  nature,  than  when  he  appears  to  be  most 
above  it.  He  is  emphatically  the  Eevealer  of 
Man.  He  shows  us  our  human  nature  in  its 
fullest  development  on  this  earth.  By  the  ven- 
eration he  inspires  we  are  brought  into  sympathy 
with  his  great  qualities,  and  are  made  to  know 
what  real  solid  things  truth  and  faith  and  self- 
sacrifice  are,  and  all  the  nobleness  which  his  life 
exemplifies ;  and  thus  he  creates  in  us  faith  in 
human  nature  and  its  illimitable  possibilities. 

The  unrivalled  personal  greatness  of  Jesus  is 
undesignedly  attested  in  two  ways  :  First,  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  so  simple,  natural,  human, 
in  all  that  he  said  and  did  and  Buffered,  that  in- 
stinctively he  won  human  sympathy  and  so  ex- 
cited the  imagination  that  it  has  exalted  him  to 
the  loftiest  height.      Generations  of  men,  wise 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  7 

and  simple,  have  found  no  difficulty  in  believing 

that  the  poor  peasant  of  Judea,  the  carpenter's 
son,  was  the  Infinite  God  himself. 

And  again,  what  hut  a  force  of  character, 
for  a  parallel  to  which  we  look  in  vain,  could 
have  saved  Christianity,  as  the  character  of 
Christ  has  done,  from  being  crushed  into  the 
dust  under  the  weight  of  error,  superstition,  and 
corruption  which  have  been  heaped  upon  it  and 
stamped  with  its  name  ? 

With  the  increase  of  general  enlightenment,  it 
is  beginning  to  be  perceived  that  Christianity  is 
not  a  form  of  opinion  or  of  observance,  neither 
a  creed  nor  a  sacrament,  but  a  Spirit,  an  Ideal, 
embodied  not  in  any  form  of  words,  but  in  the 
person  of  Jesus. 

He  is  the  Vital  Principle  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  Whatever  of  moral  power,  whatever  of 
hope,  is  derived  from  this  faith,  comes  through 
sympathy  with  him.  Religious  names  and 
forms,  doctrines,  ecclesiastical  organizations,  are 
of  quite  secondary  importance.  They  may  help 
more  or  less  the  propagation  of  his  spirit,  but 
only  as  they  bring  us  acquainted  with  him.    Only 


8  JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

as  men  have  bis  spirit,  do  they  have  experience 
of  the  power  and  peace  which  he  specially  com- 
municates. 

It  is,  therefore,  of  the  first  importance  and  of 
the  deepest  interest  to  study  to  know  him  as 
fully  as  we  may.  He  is  mainly  conceived  of  in 
his  alleged  official  character,  or  merely  as  a  great 
teacher.  But  what  we  would  ascertain  is  :  What 
manner  of  man  was  he  ?  And  this,  owing  to  the 
dogmas  which  have  gathered  like  mists  around 
him,  it  has  been  all  but  impossible  to  discover. 
They  must  be  penetrated  and  dispersed,  that  we 
may  come  at  the  recorded  facts  of  his  history, 
through  which,  and  not  through  his  teachings 
only  or  chiefly,  his  spirit  breathes  upon  us  with 
sympathetic  power,  and  he  is  brought  within  the 
embrace  of  our  affections,  and  we  become  con- 
scious of  him  as  a  living  soul,  one  with  us. 
When  we  have  thus  learned  to  know  him,  his 
words  cease  to  be  trite,  and  come  charged  and 
overflowing  with  his  personal  life. 

It  is  in  the  Four  Gospels  alone  that  the  re- 
quired information  concerning  Jesus  is  to  be 
found.     But  here  again   these  Records  arc,  like 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  9 

him,  obscured  by  the  errors  which  have  long 
and  widely  prevailed  in  regard  to  them.  I  hope 
in  the  following  pages  that  some  light  may  be 
thrown  upon  their  origin,  character,  and  con- 
tents, and  consequently  upon  the  person  of 
Jesus. 

I.  If,  according  to  the  universally  received 
opinion,  the  Gospels  were  not  written  until 
years  after  the  events  narrated  took  place,  then, 
for  obvious  reasons,  there  may  well  arise  a  doubt 
of  their  historical  truth,  to  be  dispelled  only  by 
the  most  decisive  internal  evidence  of  their  cred- 
ibility. 

Admitting  what  we  are  told  by  scholars,  that 
there  is  no  historical  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  the  Four  Gospels  before  the  second  century, 
a  fact  which  is  held  to  be  fatal  to  their  credibil- 
ity, nevertheless,  considering  how  strongly  in  all 
ages  men  are  impelled,  as  by  an  irresistible  in- 
stinct, to  avail  themselves  of  all  the  means 
within  their  reach  to  express  and  publish  the 
impression  which  events  at  all  remarkable  make 
on  them,  I  cannot  but  think  it  very  unlikely,  to 
say  the  least,  that  nothing  was  put  into  a  written 


10         JESUS,    THE    HEAKT   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

form  about  Jesus  until  a  hundred  years  after  his 
time.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  all 
the  difference  in  the  world  between  the  method 
of  publication  then  and  now.  Now  the  intelli- 
gence of  any  event  is  flashed  instantly  upon  the 
wings  of  the  lightning  to  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe.  But  then  there  were  no  means  of 
advertising  like  ours,  no  newspapers,  no  printing- 
press;  consequently  the  manufacture  and  multi- 
plication of  any  writing  must  have  been  exceed- 
ingly slow,  and  it  must  have  been  in  existence  a 
long  time  before  it  became  so  multiplied  and 
so  extensively  circulated  as  to  arrest  public 
recognition. 

These  things  being  so,  that  the  Gospels  are 
not  mentioned  by  any  writer  before  the  second 
century,  does  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  their 
being  composed  of  writings  that  came  into  ex- 
istence and  were  slowly  multiplied,  and  passed 
from  hand  to  hand  long  before.  That  such  is 
actually  their  character,  that  they  are  compila- 
tions of  narratives  that  had  been  more  or  less  in 
circulation  long  before  the  second  century,  is  to 
my  mind  abundantly  evident  from  their  internal 
characteristics.     The  whole  spirit  and  structure, 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         11 

of  the  first  three  Gospels  especially,  show  that 
they  were,  substantially,  composed  well-nigh 
contemporaneously  with  the  events  narrated. 
They  are  warm  with  the  impress  of  the  facts 
which  they  tell.  I  find  them  to  be  inspired, 
plenarily  inspired,  not  preternaturally,  but  ple- 
narily  inspired  by  Nature  and  Truth.  I  care  little 
for  their  external  history.  They  have  in  them- 
selves the  evidence  of  their  credibility.  They  are 
their  own  credentials.  A  man  skilled  in  precious 
stones  does  not  need  to  know  the  history  of  a 
diamond  in  order  to  tell  whether  it  be  a  diamond 
or  not. 

It  is  told  of  Alexander  the  Great  that,  when 
lie  visited  the  tomb  of  Achilles,  he  wished  that 
he  mi glit  have  such  a  herald  to  sing  of  his  ex- 
ploits as  Achilles  had  in  Homer.  An  idle  wish. 
Wisely  has  it  been  said,  "  Do  great  deeds,  and 
they  will  sing  themselves."  Great  things  said 
and  done  strike  all  who  hear  and  behold  them ; 
and  hearers  and  beholders  there  always  are,  who 
cannot  keep  to  themselves  what  they  have  seen 
or  heard.  They  are  driven  by  the  irresistible 
force  of  nature,  which  is  the  inspiration  of  God, 
to  report  and  record  them, — to  publish  them  in 


12         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

all  possible  ways.  This  is  what  is  meant  by 
creat  deeds  sin  grins:  themselves. 

And  this  is  what  the  history  of  Jesus  is  a  most 
impressive  instance  of.  Such  incidents  as  make 
up  the  story  of  his  life  could  no  more  foil  to  be 
instantly  published  by  every  means  then  known 
than  the  sun  could  fail  to  give  light.  "Written 
narratives  did  not  wait  till  there  was  an  external 
demand  for  them.  They  created  the  demand. 
As  I  have  paused  over  the  different  scenes  of  his 
career,  and  have  been  touched  to  the  heart  by 
the  Godlike  bearing  of  this  Man  of  men,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  if  men  had  held  their  peace, 
the  very  stones  in  the  streets,  over  which  walked 
those  blessed  feet,  would  have  cried  out.  But 
men  did  not  hold  their  peace.  They  could  not. 
And  consequently  by  word  of  mouth,  and  by 
written  words  as  well,  the  world  has  rung  with 
the  immortal  story. 

Unhappily,  we  are  so  familiar  with  it,  we  read 
it  and  hear  it  read  over  and  over  again  in  such 
falsetto  tones,  with  no  sense  of  what  it  really  sig- 
nifies, that  we  have  but  a  faint  idea  of  the  pro- 
found sensation  that  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
made.     Who  has  not  often  wished  that  he  could 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY,         13 

read  this  history  as  if  it  were  for  the  first  time 
put  into  his  hands?  It  is  hard  to  read  it  thus, 
but  it  is  not  impossible.     We  must  summon  to 

our  aid  all  the  power  of  the  imagination  and 
learn  to  read  between  the  lines.  Disentangling 
our  minds  from  all  traditionary  associations,  we 
must  study  to  go  back  and  mingle  with  the 
crowds  that  thronged  the  steps  of  Jesus.  As 
we  succeed  in  doing  so,  we  shall  be  more  and 
more  impressed  by  the  power  there  was  in  him, 
in  all  that  he  said  and  Buffered  and  did.  Invol- 
untarily our  hearts  will  glow  with  veneration 
and  love,  and  there  will  be  seen  in  the  events 
narrated,  and  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  nar- 
rated, luminous  evidence  of  their  truth. 

II.  Another  reason  why  the  credibility  of  the 
New  Testament  fails  to  be  perceived,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  accounts  they  contain  of  alleged 
miracles. 

Now  miracles,  in  the  sense  of  departures  from 
the  established  order  of  nature,  are  no  longer 
believed  in,  nor  can  they  be,  upon  any  rational 
grounds.  Truman  knowledge  advances  only  to 
discover  at  every  step  the  universality  of  law,  the 


14         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

uniformity  of  nature,  a  consummate  order.  Every- 
thing that  is,  is  in  harmony  with  all  else  that  is. 
To  show  that  anything  is  true,  it  must  be  shown 
to  be,  actually  or  probably,  in  conformity  with 
all  else  that  we  know  to  be  true.  To  pronounce 
an  event  out  of  the  natural,  God-instituted  order 
of  things  is  to  put  it  beyond  the  possibility  of 
being  shown  to  be  true.  For  then  it  is  not  to  be 
distinguished  from  a  creation  of  the  imagination. 

But  while  I  cannot  believe  in  the  possibility 
even,  of  a  miracle,  considered  as  a  departure 
from  the  laws  of  nature,  I  do  not  hold  myself 
authorized  to  reject  any  new  fact  as  a  fable  be- 
cause it  appears  to  be  out  of  the  natural  order 
of  things.  Where  would  Science  be  now,  what 
progress  would  it  ever  have  made,  if  it  had  re- 
fused to  accept  new  facts  because  they  seemed  to 
be  at  variance  with  known  laws?  When  facts 
having  this  appearance  are  fully  substantiated, 
then  the  inevitable  conclusion  is  that  they  are 
due  to  some  law  unknown. 

To  my  mind,  the  so-called  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament  arc  proved  to  have  actually  occurred 
by  evidence  which  I  cannot  resist.  I  believe  that 
the   sick,  the  lame,  the    blind  were   instantane- 


JESUS,    THE    IIEAKT   OF   CIIRrSTIAXITY.         15 

ously  relieved,as  is  reported, that  Lazarus  awoke 
from  the  Bleep  of  death  at  the  summons  of  Jesus, 
and  that  Jesns  himself  reappeared  after  his  cru- 
cifixion.     The   evidence  upon  which   my  faith 

rests  is  inlaid  in  the  structure  of  these  narra- 
tives. Things  must  he  true  that  are  so  truth- 
fully told.  No  coin,  no  medal,  ever  showed  the 
stamp  of  the  die  more  sharply  than  the  Gospels, 
rightly  read,  show  the  impress  of  the  facts  which 

they  relate. 

So  satisfactory  is  this  evidence  that  even  could 
I  catch  no  glimpse  of  the  law  in  conformity  with 
which  these  wonderful  events  occurred,  I  should 
feel  none  the  less  hound  to  accept  them,  and  wait 
patiently  for  the  discovery  of  the  law. 

But  the  fact  is.  we  are  not  left  wholly  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  way  in  winch  the  extraordinary 
physical  phenomena  that  attended  the  career  of 
Jesus  were  produced.  We  have  most  significant 
indications  that  they  happened  in  ohedienee  to  a 
law  with  which  we  are  familiar,  and  of  the  oper- 
ation of  which  we  have  all  heard,  if  we  have 
not  witnessed,  very  striking  instances  :  namely, 
the  law  of  the  influence  of  the  mind  over  the 
body,  of  spirit  over  matter.     Not  to  any  preter- 


16         JESUS,    THE    HEART  OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

natural  gift  possessed  by  Jesus  are  the  wonder- 
ful tilings  that  occurred  attributable.  lie  made 
no  pretensions  to  any  such  power.  Most  em- 
phatically did  be  declare  over  and  over  again 
that  it  was  in  the  faith  of  those  who  were"  re- 
lieved that  the  healing  virtue  lay. 

The  miracles,  therefore,  related  in  bis  history 
are  not  violations  of  natural  laws,  but  natural 
facts.  Not  only  so,  but  of  all  facts  they  arc  the 
most  natural,  since  they  are  illustrations  of  the 
highest  known  law  of  Nature.  * 

It  is  the  charm,  the  beauty  of  this  view  of 
them,   that,   thus   regarded,  they  illustrate   the 
lofty  character  of  Jesus,  and,  as  they  most  as- 
suredly would   not  do  were  they  mere  fables, 
they  create  a  higher  idea  of  him.     Indeed,  there 
is  no  respect  in  which  he  seems  to  me  greater 
than  in  his  attitude  amidst  the  astonishing  effects 
that  accompanied  him.     A  young  man,  living  in 
retirement  till  bis  thirtieth  year,  or  thereabouts, 
he  appeared  in  public  only  to  see  things  occurring 
in  his  presence,  at  a  word  of  his  lips,  at  a  touch 
of  his  hand,  that  causrd  multitudes  to  burst  forth 
in   shouts  of  admiration   and   to  ascribe  to  him 
extraordinary  power.     But  so  far  from  taking 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         17 

any  credit  to  himself,  lie  is  evidently  struck  only 
by  the  mighty  power  of  the  faith  of  the  people. 

That  was  tin'  agency  that  tilled  his  eye  and  mind 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  thought  of  himself.  To 
my  mind,  this  absence  of  the  slightest  inclina- 
tion to  sec  himself  through  the  eyes  of  the  mul- 
titude, and  to  take  advantage  of  the  popular 
enthusiasm  betokens  a  force  of  character,  a 
magnanimity,  only  surpassed  by  the  kingly  dig- 
nity of  his  bearing  at  the  last,  when,  instead 
of  the  Hosannas  of  the  people,  the  savage  yell, 
"Crucify  him!  crucify  him!*'  was  ringing  in 
his  ears,  and  he  stood  there,  confronting  death 
in  a  most  horrid  shape,  as  calm  and  silent  as  the 
heavens  above  him. 

Thus  it  appears  that,  without  violence  to  the 
record,  in  fact  by  its  explicit  authority,  the  mir- 
acles so  called  admit  of  being  so  viewed  that,  so 
far  from  being  inconsistent  with  his  high  char- 
acter, so  far  from  belittling  him  and  making  him 
appear  as  a  mere  vulgar  wonder-worker,  playing 
upon  the  rude  passion  for  the  marvellous,  as  they 
certainly  would  do  were  they  mere  fables,  they 
create  in  as  a  new  and  deeper  sense  of  his  great- 
ness of  mind.  Were  they  mere  fictions,  woven 
2* 


18         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

into  the  history  to  make  him  appear  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  preternatural  power,  could  they  possi- 
bly have  thus  harmonized  with  our  highest  idea 
of  him  ?  Would  not  the  result  have  been  di- 
rectly the  opposite, — to  lower  and  mar  our  con- 
ception of  his  exalted  character?  I  could  more 
easily  imagine  that  one  of  the  immortal  creations 
of  Grecian  Art  could  escape  mutilation,  were  a 
child  to  take  the  chisel  and  undertake  to  im- 
prove it,  than  that  the  divine  character  of  Jesus, 
God-fashioned  as  it  was,  could  be  otherwise  than 
fatally  injured  by  the  endeavor  to  magnify  it  by 
the  interpolation  of  crude  human  fictions. 

That  the  first  written  reports  of  exciting  events 
should  lack  order  and  fulness,  and  partake  of  the 
hasty  and  fragmentary  character  of  the  first  oral 
reports  that  go  abroad,  lies  in  the  nature  of 
things.  In  the  case  of  Jesus,  it  is  so  natural  to 
expect  that  his  immediate  disciples,  those  who, 
having  been  in  constant  attendance  upon  him, 
were  best  qualified  to  tell  the  story  of  his  life, 
would  be  the  first  to  write  it,  that  it  lias  always 
been  taken  for  granted  that  such  was  the  fact, 
that  there  was  nothing  written  about  him  before 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY.         19 

they  wrote.     But,  while  they  were,  doubtless, 

always  talking  about  their  Master,  they  were, 
for  a  special  reason,  the  last  to  think  of  putting 
anything  in  writing.  Possessed  with  the  idea 
that  he  was  the  glorious  Messiah,  whose  reign 
was  shortly  to  commence,  they  were  in  absorb- 
ing expectation  of  events  that  would  cast  all  that 
preceded  them  into  the  shade.  Their  Epistles 
show  how  fully  the  primitive  disciples  were  en- 
grossed with  the  future.  Their  eyes  were  fast- 
ened upon  what  was  coming.  They  make  no 
allusions  to  past  events.  The  only  past  event 
referred  to  in  the  Epistles  of  Peter  (ii.  1,  18)  is 
the  Transfiguration,  and  that  is  alluded  to  be- 
cause it  was  conceived  to  be  a  fore-vision  of 
Jesus  in  the  coming  glory  of  his  Messiahship.  I 
conclude,  therefore,  that  it  was  not  the  personal 
followers  of  Jesus  who  were  the  first  to  put  his 
acts  and  sayings  into  a  written  form :  it  was  un- 
committed spectators,  outside  the  little  circle  of 
his  immediate  disciples,  who,  struck  by  the  extra- 
ordinary character  of  the  things  said  and  done  by 
him,  were  moved  to  record  them,  for  no  partisan 
purpose,  by  a  -ingle  and  irresistible  sense  of  truth. 
While   it   is  thus  evident  that,  as  certainly  as 


20         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  incidents  of  the  career  of  Jesus  would  be 
published  by  word  of  mouth,  they  would  be  pub- 
lished also  in  a  written  form,  I  believe  that  many 
of  those  earliest  written  narratives  are  still  ex- 
tant. Here  they  are  in  our  present  first  three 
Gospels.  These  Gospels  are  almost  entirely 
made  up  of  them. 

That  the  immediate  disciples  of  Jesus  are 
always  spoken  of  in  the  third  person  intimates 
that  the  materials  of  which  these  Gospels  are 
composed  were  written  by  others  than  they. 

Of  the  first  three  Gospels,  only  one  bears  the 
name  of  a  personal  disciple,  and  he  was  one  of 
the  least  eminent ;  and  although  the  fourth  Gos- 
pel bears  the  name  of  the  beloved  disciple,  it  is 
a  question  whether  John  had  any  direct  hand  in 
writing  the  Gospel  ascribed  to  him;  all  which  is 
in  accord  with  the  idea  that  the  immediate  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  took  so  tardy  and  so  feeble  an 
interest  in  putting  the  particulars  of  his  life  on 
record  that  not  until,  in  the  course  of  time,  a 
demand  was  made  for  written  accounts  of  him, 
did  they  give  any  heed  to  the  work,  and  then  it 
\v;t>  left  to  one  of  the  least  eminent  among 
them,  Matthew,  and  to  the  nephew  of  an  Apos- 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         21 

tic,  Mark,  and  to  Luke,  a  companion  of  Paul, 
neither  of  whom  was  of  the  original  twelve,  to 
prepare  the  needed  accounts.     Not  that  it  was 

thus  arranged  by  convention,  but  so  it  naturally 
chanced.  And  they  who  prepared  our  present 
Gospels  did  hardly  anything  more  than  compile 
the  accounts  already  in  circulation,  and  known 
to  have  been  obtained  from  authentic  source-. 

However  this  may  be,  our  present  Gospels, — I 
speak  of  the  first  three, — have  all  the  air  of  hav- 
ing been  written  very  closely  in  time  upon  the 
events  which  they  relate.  Had  they  been  com- 
posed a  hundred,  or  even  fifty  years  later,  they 
would  have  borne  the  stamp  of  that  later  time.* 
There  would  have  appeared  in  them  traces  of 
objections  that  would  have  naturally  arisen,  and 
of  explanations  that  would  have  come  to  be  de- 
manded. They  would  have  given  it  to  be  seen 
in  one  way  and  another  that  they  were  written 
in  the  presence  of  doubters  and  scoffers.  There 
would  have  been  something  of  a  controversial 
hue  about  them,  and  of  an  anxiety  to  make  out 


*  See  "Indirect  Testimony  of  History  to  the  Genuineness 
of  the  Gospels,"  by  F.  Huidekoper. 


22         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRrSTIANITY. 

a  case.  As  it  is,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  know  how 
they  could  more  plainly  appear  to  owe  their  ex- 
istence to  the  pure  force  of  truth.  They  declare 
their  birth  in  every  feature,  marked  strongly  by 
the  first  impression  made,  before  opportunity 
was  given  for  speculation  and  partisanship  to 
tamper  with  the  facts  recorded.  In  fine,  they 
are  just  such  accounts  as  would  first  go  abroad, 
supposing  the  things  told  actually  occurred. 
They  are  oral  reports  written  down. 

We  may  judge  of  what  a  different  character 
the  first  three  Gospels  would  have  been,  had  they 
been  written  at  a  later  period,  from  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  which  is  in  great 
part  explained,  I  conceive,  by  reference  to  its 
later  origin.  As  the  first  three  bear  marks  of 
having  been  written  when  the  events  related 
were  fresh,  before  time  was  given  for  any  theo- 
rizing, the  fourth  bears  equally  unmistakable 
si<ms  of  a  later  origin. 

The  supposition  that,  to  my  mind,  best  ex- 
plains the  peculiar  character  of  this  Gospel  is, 
that  it  is  the  work  of  some  highly  spiritually- 
minded  friend  of  the  aged  John,  very  much 
younger   than   he,   receiving   from   him   all   his 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF  CHRISTIANITY.         23 

information  concerning  Jesus  and  giving  all  the 
credit  of  bis  work  to  the  Apostle,  not  to  gain  for 
it  an  authority  which  it  would  not  otherwise 
possess,  but  because  he  honestly  believed  that 

all  that  he  had  written  he  had  received  from 
John.  It  is  always  difficult  to  compute  with 
any  exactness  the  amount  of  our  intellectual 
indebtedness  to  others,  to  determine  how  much 
has  come  from  them  and  how  much  is  our 
own,  or  has  been  undesignedly  suggested.  The 
author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  was  not  the  mere 
amanuensis  of  the  Apostle.  "What  came  from 
the  lips  of  his  aged  and  venerated  friend  re- 
ceived form  and  color  from  his  own  mind.  He 
amplifies  John's  communications  in  order  to 
bring  fully  out  what  he  conceived  to  be  their 
real  import.  Tie  states  (xxi.  31)  that  he  wrote  for 
a  purpose:  to  prove  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus; 
his  work  is  consequently  more  or  less  fashioned 
thereby.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  him- 
self was  of  Jewish  blood.  If  a  Jew,  lie  evi- 
dently wrote  at  a  time  when  the  division-line 
had  become  sharply  drawn  between  the  Jews 
and  the  followers  of  Jesus.  Read  the  fifth  chap- 
ter of  his  Gospel,  and  observe  how  the  Jews  arc 


24         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

spoken  of  as  by  one  not  of  their  race.  The 
work  shows  throughout  that  it  was  written* 
when  the  idea  of  Jesus  was  becoming  invested 
with  an  official  character  and  Christianity  was 
beginning  to  take  the  form  of  a  divine  scheme, 
and  the  speculations  which  perverted  it  into  a 
system  of  dogmas  were  beginning  to  germinate. 
In  fine,  the  fourth  Gospel,  standing  out  in  con- 
trast with  the  three  others,  brings  into  promi- 
nence their  eminently  objective  character,  the 
first  impression,  so  visible  in  them,  made  by  the 
events  recorded. 

These  first  three  Gospels  tell  things  just  as 
they  would  be  told  by  persons  who  had  no 
thought  of  anything  but  what  they  were  telling. 
Facts  are  stated  without  a  thought  of  their  con- 
nection, and  of  the  facts  only  the  particulars  are 
mentioned  which  were  striking  at  the  moment. 
There  is  no  pausing  to  explain,  or  to  reconcile 
the  statements  made  with  one  another  or  with 
themselves.  They  not  only  have  a  pervading  air 
of  truth  in  their  copious  references  to  times, 
places,  and  persons,  they  abound  in  touches  of 
nature,  verisimilitudes,  undesigned,  unconscious, 
harmonies  with  the  truth  of  things,  which  accu- 


JESUS,    THE    HEAUT   OF    CHRISTIANITY.         25 

mulate  an  irresistible  argument  for  their  credi- 
bility, creating;  the  impression  that  they  were 
written  when  all  was  fresh,  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  incidents  which  they  narrate. 

But  whether,  after  all,  the  view  which  I  take 
of  the  origin  of  these  accounts  of  Jesus  be  correct 
or  not,  their  claim  to  be  received  as  true  does  not 
rest  upon  our  knowing  when  or  by  whom  they 
were  written.  It  is  not  the  settlement  of  these 
questions,  but  the  intrinsic  character  of  the  Gos- 
pels which  alone  can  vouch  for  their  veracity. 
They  must  speak  for  themselves.  And  here  I 
can  only  say  that,  having  made  these  books  my 
chief  study  for  fifty  years  and  more,  trying 
always  to  read  them  without  fear  or  favor,  as 
any  ancient  writings  should  be  read  which  had 
just  come  to  light,  I  seem  to  myself  to  have  been 
brought  acquainted,  in  their  whole  character  and 
structure,  as  never  before,  with  the  exquisite 
genius  of  nature,  the  inimitable  skill  of  truth, 
the  work  of  the  Great  Master. 

I  do  not  know  how  I  can  give  the  reader  a 
better  idea  of  what  impresses  me  as  the  truthful 
character  of  the  Gospels  than  by  asking  attention 
to  a  particular  example  of  it. 


26         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

In  no  part  of  these  writings  are  the  signatures 
of  Truth  and  Nature  more  numerous  and  signifi- 
cant than  in  those  portions  which  relate  the  most 
extraordinary  event  in  the  whole  htetory:    the 
Reappearance  of  Jesus  to  Mary  after  death;  so 
abundant    and    striking   are   they,  that,    to    my 
mind,  if  anything  told  of  him  be  true,  if  it  be 
true  that  he  ever  existed,  it  is  equally  true  that 
he  appeared  alive,  in  flesh  and  blood,  to  Mary 
after  he  had  expired  on  the   cross.      Inexplica- 
ble, incredible  it  is  pronounced.     Nevertheless, 
it  is  out  of  my  power  to  doubt  it,   because  it 
is  proved  by  the  strongest  evidence  possible,  by 
evidence  which  there  was   no   mortal  intention 
of  giving,  and  by  which  he  is  proved  to  have 
been    alive   and  present  before   he  was    recog- 
nized.    I  have  again  and  again  endeavored,  to 
the  weariness,  I  am  afraid,  of  my  readers  and 
hearers,  to  set  forth  this  wonderful  evidence.     It 
is  inwrought  into  the  structure  of  the  four  differ- 
ent narratives  of  the  great  fact,  and  drawn  not 
from  the  direct  affirmations  of  the  persons  pres- 
ent on  the  spot,  but  from   their  delusions  and 
mistakes.     That  a  person  of  such  extraordinary 
native  power,  as  I  find  Jesus  to  have  been,  should 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         27 

reappear  alive  after  death,  cumbered  though  the 
fact  he  with  questions  that  I  cannot  answer,  I 
must  believe,  >ince  it  is  thus  attested.  But  that 
these  four  narratives,  if  they  are  fictions,  horn  of 
delusion  and  the  blind  passion  for  the  marvellous, 
should  be  found  in  their  minutest  details  to  be  in 
entire,  seamless  consistency  with  the  truth  of 
nature,— this  I  cannot  believe.  It  is  taxing  my 
credulity  too  heavily. 

If  I  am  mistaken,  if  the  Gospels  are  mere 
fictions,  then  are  they  the  crudest  fictions  that 
were  ever  invented,  and  I  do  not  wonder  that 
they  are  so  regarded  by  those  who  have  never 
explored  their  wealth  of  internal  evidence. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  story  in  the  first 
Gospel  of  the  first  Reappearance  of  Jesus.  It 
gives  us  to  understand  that  the  guard  stationed 
at  the  tomb  and  the  women  were  all  present  when 
the  supposed  angel  appeared  and  rolled  away  the 
stone,  that  the  guard  were  frightened  to  death, 
and  that  the  angel  told  the  women  that  Jesus 
had  risen.  But  when,  according  to  this  story,— 
when  did  he  rise  and  leave  the  tomb?  The 
stone  had  just  been  removed.  Where  was  time 
for  him  to  rise  and   come  forth?     We  turn  to 


28         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  three  other  accounts,  and  we  find  that  they 
all  agree  in  stating  that  the  appearance  of  the 

Angel  and  the  removal  of  the  stone  took  place 
before  the  women  came.  Accepting  this  state- 
ment, we  have  only  to  consider  how,  upon  the 
occurrence  of  exciting  events  following  one  an- 
other in  swift  succession,  time  is  forgotten  and 
the  most  startling  particulars  are  told  all  in  a 
breath,  in  order  to  see  how  natural  it  is  that  just 
such  a  report  as  this  in  the  first  Gospel,  telling 
all  the  most  striking  incidents  at  once,  should 
have  been  made.  But  taking  this  first  story  by 
itself,  without  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the 
other  narratives,  regarding  it  as  an  invention, 
was  there  ever  a  clumsier  fabrication  ?  It  un- 
dertakes to  tell  how  a  dead  man  came  to  life, 
and  by  its  own  showing  the  fact  is  impossible ! 
Assuredly,  if  the  authors  of  the  Gospels  were  so 
stupid  as  this  comes  to,  nothing  could  be  easier 
than  to  tear  their  work  to  shreds,  and  hold  it 
up  to  the  derision  of  the  simplest  of  mankind. 

If  these  books  that  profess  to  tell  us  about 
Jesus  are  fabrications,  they  arc,  I  repeat,  as  this 
passage  of  the  first  Gospel  shows,  fabrications  of 
the  poorest  description,     instead  of  discovering 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 


29 


in  them,  as  we  do,  numerous  imprints  of  the  deli- 
cate hand  of  nature,  unconscious  harmonies  with 
truth  and  prohahility,  contradictions  and  absur- 
dities would  dare  upon  us  from  every  Bentenee. 

It  is  only  the  creations  of  the  rarest  genius 
that  counterfeit   the  workmanship  of  nature  so 
cunningly  as  hardly  to  be  distinguishable  there- 
from.    But  there  are  things  in  which  even  this 
is   not   possible   to   the  most   inspired  of  men. 
When  it  comes  to  matters  of  fact  and   circum- 
stance, such    as   the    Gospels    abound   in,    even 
Shakespeare    never   attempted    the   impossible, 
never   presumed   to    emulate  nature  in  this  re- 
spect, but  took  for  the  plots  of  his  dramas  either 
the  events  and  personages    of  history,  or  such 
old-time  stories  as  came  to  hand,  however  rude 
and  unnatural  they  might  be.     In  the  world  of 
the  imagination  he  ranged  and  ruled  as  a  god. 
But  so  far  was  lie  from   dreaming  of  inserting 
fictitious    events   into    the    God-woven    web    of 
things  so  that  they  should  be   indistinguishable 
from    actual    occurrences,    that    he    treated    the 
unities  of  time  and  place   as  if  no  such  things 
were.      That  such   simple-minded   and  unculti- 
vated  writers   as   the    authors    of    the    Gospels 


3* 


30         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

should  produce  inventions  all  of  a  piece  with 
truth  and  nature,  nay,  inventions  that  would  not 
be  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  in  flat  contradiction  of 
truth  and  nature, — why,  I  could  as  readily  ac- 
cept in  all  seriousness  the  supposition  of  a  wor- 
shipper of  Goethe's,  that  "  if  the  Almighty, 
when  he  made  the  world,  had  created  no  birds, 
but  had  said  to  that  great  man, '  My  dear  Goethe, 
there  is  a  void  in  Creation.  Fill  it  up,'  Goethe 
would  instantly  have  proceeded  to  make  birds 
just  as  the  Almighty  has  made  them." 

Doubtless  stories  may  be  invented  that  shall 
wear  an  air  of  truth.  There  is  Robinson  Crusoe, 
for  instance,  which,  as  Dr.  Whately  has  remarked, 
reads  more  like  a  veritable  history  than  any  work 
of  the  kind  that  has  ever  been  written.  But  to 
create  this  appearance,  the  author  had  to  lay  the 
scene  of  his  story  in  a  lonely  island  where  he 
was  free  to  invent  all  his  circumstances  without 
coming  in  contact  and  contradiction  with  known 
facts.  But  even  with  this  advantage,  the  story 
in  various  particulars, — Dr.  Whatcly  enumerates 
eight, — violates  truth  and  probability.  Whereas 
the  Gospel  history  is  laid  in  the  very  thick  of 
affairs,  and  numerous  individuals  are  concerned 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         31 

in  it,  and  the  action  goes  on  in  many  places,  and 

what  is  the  most  remarkable  of  all,  the  facts  re- 
lated are  of  no  every-day  order,  but  facts  extraor- 
dinary, unprecedented.  And  yet  all  is  in  accord 
with  truth  and  nature. 

That  these  abundant  marks  of  truth  arc  wholly 
undesigned  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that  they 
are  far  from  being  obvious.  Had  they  been  in- 
tended to  make  the  history  appear  true,  they 
would  have  been  rendered  conspicuous.  Many 
of  those  which  I  indicate  appear  never  to  have 
been  noticed  before.  It  is  true,  so  long  as  this 
history  has  been  held  to  be  a  miraculously  in- 
spired composition,  in  a  peculiar  sense  the  word 
of  God,  men  have  not  cared  to  find  in  it  traces 
of  human  nature.  The  evidences  of  its  truth 
have  not  been  sought  for  in  this  direction.  Now, 
when  the  character  of  the  Gospels  has  come  to 
be  understood,  and  they  are  regarded  as  purely 
human  compositions,  the  marks  of  truth  with 
which  they  are  inlaid  are  found  to  be  as  un- 
designed as  they  are  striking.  Furthermore, 
what  puts  the  coincidences  of  the  Gospels  with 
truth  and  nature  beyond  the  suspicion  of  being 
fabricated  is  the  fact  that  in  many  instances  they 


32         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

result  from  a  collation  of  four  different  and  inde- 
pendent narratives. 

II.  The  Gospels  are  written  not  in  the  dialect 
that  Jesus  used,  but  in  a  tongue  foreign  to  his. 
Does  not  this  fact  render  it  uncertain  whether 
we  have  what  he  really  said  ? 

That  the  story  of  his  acts  and  sayings  is  told 
in  ever  so  many  different  languages,  and  is  the 
same  in  all,  testifies  to  its  plainness,  and  justifies 
our  confidence  in  its  substantial  fidelity. 

Again,  it  is  evident,  on  the  face  of  the  Gospels, 
that  their  authors  were  persons  of  no  literary  cul- 
ture. They  had  but  a  scanty  vocabulary.  They 
had  not  verbal  wealth  enough  to  afford  to  make 
excursions.  Had  they  had  a  copious  supply  of 
words,  and  had  they  known  the  art  of  literary 
composition,  they  would  have  been  tempted  to 
color  their  narratives  and  to  forestall  our  ad- 
miration. They  would  have  had  an  eye  to  effect. 
There  is  no  trace  of  any  such  bias.*     It  follows 


*  Except  in  the  disposition  naively  shown,  especially  in  tho 
first  Gospel,  to  find  in  the  incidents  mentioned  verifications  of 
pa -ages  in  the  Old  Testament. 


JESUS,    THE    HEART    OF   CHRISTIANITY.         33 

that  the  translation  from  the  dialect  used  by 
Jesus  into  that  of  our  present  Gospels  is  alto- 
gether literal.  Indeed,  the  Greek  of  the  New 
Testament  is  not  pure   Greek.     It   abounds  in 

Hebraisms,  a  list  of  which  makes  a  goodly  sized 
volume. 

There  is  another  thing  that  goes  far  to  assure 
us  that  the  utterances  of  Jesus  are  faithfully  re- 
ported in  the  first  three  Gospels,  although  in  a 
language  which  he  did  not  speak.  It  is  emi- 
nently characteristic  of  his  teachings  that  they 
are  not  abstract  and  general,  but  either  simple 
stories  or  identified  with  occasions.  Now  these 
are  precisely  the  forms  that  render  things  said 
easy  to  be  remembered,  hard  to  be  forgotten. 
Years  ago  there  came  to  Philadelphia  a  teacher 
of  Mnemonics :  the  art  of  remembering ;  and 
the  one  principle  of  his  method  was  drawn  from 
the  experience,  familiar  to  us  all,  that  the  memory 
of  things  and  words  is  readily  preserved  when 
there  are  incidents  by  which  we  remember  them. 

III.  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  the  reading  of 
the  Gospels  that  large  allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  mode  of  narration  characteristic  of  such 


34         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

unpractised  writers  as  the  authors  of  these  books 
show  themselves  to  have  been.  Writers  of  this 
class  always  narrate  scenically.  This  peculiarity 
will  best  be  shown  by  an  instance  or  two. 

Take  the  so  styled  Calling  of  the  first  four 
disciples  of  Jesus.  It  is  told  thus  :  "  And  Jesus, 
walking  by  the  sea  of  Galilee,  saw  two  brothers,  Simon, 
icho  was  called  Peter,  and  Andrew  his  brother,  casting 
a  net  into  the  lake :  for  they  were  fishermen,  and  he 
said,  Follow  me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men. 
And  they  immediately  left  their  nets,  and  followed  him. 
And  going  on,  he  saio  two  other  brothers,  James  the 
son  of  Zebedee,  and  John  his  brother,  mending  their 
nets,  and  he  called  them,.  And  they  immediately  left 
the  boat  and  their  father,  and  followed  him"  Taken 
to  the  letter,  as  this  passage  commonly  is,  it  has 
a  look  of  the  miraculous,  as  if  it  meant  that 
Jesus  exercised  a  sudden  and  supernatural  power 
over  these  men.  But  this  appearance  is  owing, 
I  conceive,  to  the  scenic  style  of  the  narration. 
As  the  borders  of  the  lake  were  familiar  to  Jesus, 
a  little  reflection  suggests  the  improbability  of 
his  being  unacquainted  with  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood.  We  may  well  suppose  that  he 
had  known  these  men  for  some  time,  that  he  had 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         35 

talked  with  them  frequently,  and  that  it  was  from 

personal  acquaintance  with  them  that  he  selected 
them  from  his  limited  circle  as  the  best  fitted  for 
his  purpose.  His  invitation  to  them  implies  as 
much.  Their  readiness  to  throw  in  their  lot  with 
him  presupposes  their  previous  knowledge  of 
him.  To  outsiders,  ignorant  of  the  private  and 
gradual  manner  in  which  they  were  brought  to 
give  in  their  adhesion  to  him,  the  change  made 
in  their  lives  may  well  have  seemed  sudden.  All 
that  is  here  related  would  have  been  told  by  a 
practised  writer  somewhat  thus :  "  On  the  shores 
of  the  lake  of  Galilee,  Jesus  became  acquainted 
with  certain  persons,  Peter  and  Andrew,  broth- 
ers, and  with  two  others,  the  brothers  James  and 
John,  sons  of  Zebedee,  fishermen  all,  and  he  in- 
duced them  to  quit  their  boats  and  nets  and  go 
with  him,  promising  to  make  them  fishers  of 
men." 

The  same  peculiar  style  of  narration  appears 
in  the  passage  which  tells  of  the  ass  that  Jesus 
procured  to  ride  into  Jerusalem.  It  is  only  the 
way  in  which  it  is  told  that  gives  it  an  air  of  the 
miraculous.  The  incident  is  mentioned  simply 
enough  in  the  fourth  Gospel.    There  it  is  merely 


36         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

said  that  "  Jesus,  when  lie  found  a  young  ass,  sat 
thereon."  In  the  second  and  third  Gospels  there  is 
great  particularity.  Related  in  modern  style,  the 
passage  would  read  thus  :  "  As  Jesus  approached 
Jerusalem,  he  sent  two  of  his  disciples  to  a 
neighboring  village,  where,  at  a  certain  place, 
they  would  find  an  ass  with  her  colt.  He  bade 
them  bring  the  animals  to  him,  and  if  any  one 
objected,  to  say  that  it  was  he  who  needed  them." 
It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  was  known  to 
the  owner.  Jesus  had  friends  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  capital ;  Lazarus  and  his  sisters,  for 
instance,  in  Bethany,  which  village  it  was  prob- 
able that  he  was  approaching.* 

It  was  in  conformity  with  the  same  peculiar 
mode  of  narration,  characteristic  of  uneducated 
people  and  children,  that  the  unspoken  thoughts 
of  men  are  cast  into  verbal  forms,  as  in  Luke 
(vii.  49):  "And  they  that  sat  at  meat  with  him 
began  to  sag  within  themselves,  Who  is  this  that  for- 
giveth  sins  also  V     In  other  words,  "  the  persons 


*  No  reason  is  so  much  as  intimated  why  Jesus  wished  to 
ride,  hut  the  simple  reason  was,  I  suppose,  because  as  he  drew 
near  to  the  city  the  crowd  so  Increased  thai  his  progress  would 
he  less  impeded  if  he  rode  than  if  he  went  on  foot. 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         37 

present  at  table  wondered  who  this  man  was  who 
arrogated  to  himself  authority  to  forgive  sins." 

TV.  We  fail  to  understand  these  ancient  wri- 
tings unless  we  also  hear  in  mind  that,  in 
accordance  with  Hebrew  modes  of  thought, 
familiar,  natural  facts  are  spoken  of  in  forms  of 
speech  very  different  from  ours,  and  yet  pre- 
cisely the  same  things  are  meant  by  both.  Thus, 
in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the  first  Gospel, 
where  his  disciples  are  said  to  have  asked  Jesus 
why,  in  speaking  to  the  people,  he  used  parables, 
his  answer  is:  "  To  you  it  is  given  to  know  the 
hidden  things  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  to 
them  it  is  not  given."  According  to  our  ways  of 
thinking  and  speaking,  the  same  sense  exactly  is 
expressed  by  the  words,  "  You  are  able  to  know, 
etc.,  but  they  are  unable."  Jesus  adds:  "  Whoso- 
ever hath,  to  him  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have 
abundance:  but  whosoever  hath  not, from  him  shall 
be  taken  away  even  that  he  hath,"  which  has  an 
arbitrary  sound  to  the  common  reader.  But, 
making  due  allowance  for  the  modes  of  thought 
and  speech  <>t'  that  time,  we  have  here  a  state- 
ment of  the  natural   law  of  which  Mr.  Darwin 

4 


38         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY, 

makes  so  much  use,  and  by  which  every  organ, 
every  faculty,  is   strengthened  by   exercise  and 

atrophied  by  disuse. 

The  Hebrews  knew  nothing  of  our  mechanical 

theories  of  nature.  They  rested  in  no  secondary 
causes.  They  referred  all  things  to  God.  Man's 
ability  was  in  their  view  a  direct  gift  from 
above,  given  when  exercised,  taken  away  when 
not  exercised.  To  the  Hebrew  Law-giver  and 
to  the  Prophets  a  conviction  of  mind  was  the 
word  of  the  Lord.  All  evil,  physical  and  moral, 
was  ascribed  to  spiritual  agencies.  It  may  be 
doubted,  by  the  way,  whether  their  spiritual 
way  of  looking  at  things  led  them  farther  astray 
than  our  mechanical  theories  are  now  threaten- 
ing to  lead  us.  Infinite  difficulty  has  been  found 
in  understanding  the  narrative  of  the  spiritual 
conflicts  of  Jesus  in  the  desert.  It  has  all  come 
from  not  allowing  for  the  manner  of  thinking, 
and  consequently  of  speaking,  prevalent  then 
and  there.  When  he  described  those  severe 
experiences  of  his,  which  were  obviously  alto- 
gether natural,  he  was  not  understood,  nor  did 
lie  mean  to  be  understood y as  saying  that  they 
were  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  things.     He 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         39 

used  the  forms  of  thought  and  speecli  in  which 
all  such  farts  were  then  clothed.  And  so,  when 
he  speaks  of  the  devil's  coming  and  snatching 
away  the  good  seed  sown  in  the  heart,  and  of 
Satan's  desiring  to  sift  Peter  like  wheat,  he  is 
speaking,  in  the  modes  of  expression  then  in 
use,  only  of  familiar  moral  experiences.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  understand  these  and  similar  passages 
as  if  they  were  designed  to  assert  the  existence 
of  a  personal  spirit  of  evil.  This  is  not  the 
point  nor  purpose. 

V.  Another  thing  to  be  considered,  which 
helps  greatly  to  open  the  Gospels  to  us  and  give 
us  an  insight  into  the  character  of  Jesus,  is  the 
fact  that  the  ejaculations  of  passion  take  pre- 
cisely the  same  forms  of  speech,  make  use  of 
the  same  general  and  universal  terms,  in  which 
the  deliberative  intellect  enunciates  its  abstract 
propositions. 

When  we  speak  from  deep  feeling,  the  cause  of 
our  emotion  dilates  into  a  world-embracing  fact, 
hiding  from  us  for  the  moment  all  exceptions,  all 
qualifying  considerations,  and  we  express  our- 
selves   accordingly.       AVhen,   for    example,   we 


40         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

are  deceived  by  one  in  whom  we  trusted,  how 
naturally  do  we  exclaim,  "  There  is  no  truth  in 
man!"  Those  who  hear  us  know  at  once  from 
our  whole  manner  that  we  are  giving  utterance 
to  a  hurst  of  feeling,  not  to  a  coolly-formed 
opinion.  But  those  to  whom  our  words  are  re- 
ported, ignorant  of  the  circumstances  and  of  our 
manner,  fail  to  make  due  allowance,  and  conse- 
quently misapprehend  us.  Thus  Jesus  has  been 
greatly  misunderstood.  He  has  been  supposed 
to  be  announcing  universal  truths,  articles  of 
faith,  when  he  was  only  relieving  deep  emotion 
by  strong  exclamations. 

Thus,  when  he  said  that  it  was  easier  for  a 
camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for 
a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  he 
was  not  deliberately  asserting  that  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  the  rich  to  enter  the  heavenly 
kingdom,  but  naturally  and  strongly  expressing 
the  deep  sense  of  the  moral  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  the  wealthy,  with  which  the  case  of  the  rich 
youth  before  him,  whom  to  look  upon  was  to 
love,  had  suddenly  and  most  forcibly  impressed 
him. 

The    most   striking   instance   in    point  is    the 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         41 

passage  in  which  he  declares  the  sin  against  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  never  to  be  forgiven,  a  passage 
which  has  wrung  with  terror  many  tender  minds, 
and  driven  them  to  despair  and  madness.  "When 
we  turn  to  the  circumstances  of  this  declara- 
tion, we  perceive  the  cause  and  the  character  of 
this  strong  language.  Certain  Pharisees  charged 
Jesus  with  being  in  league  with  the  Devil.  And 
why?  What  was  the  ground  of  the  accusation? 
An  act  of  humanity  which  he  had  just  performed. 
Good  was  devilish  in  their  eyes.  Could  human 
depravity  go  any  further  ?  It  shocked  Jesus  to 
the  last  degree.  In  reply,  he  held  up  the  shame- 
ful charge  before  all  the  people,  exposing  its  base- 
ness and  absurdity  through  and  through;  and  his 
indignation  grew  so,  that,  while  he  thus  relieved 
it,  he  ended  by  pronouncing  those  hardened  ca- 
lumniators past  forgiveness  then  and  ever.  lie 
spoke  as  he  was  moved,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  to 
the  letter.  What  is  more  natural  ?  Are  we  not 
often  prompted,  in  the  heat  of  passion,  caused 
only  by  some  slight  personal  offence,  to  exclaim, 
"It  is  unpardonable!"  But  it  was  no  personal 
offence  that  kindled  into  a   blaze  the  heart  of 

Jesus.     He   said  in  the  same   breath  that  they 
4* 


42         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

might  revile  him, — as,  doubtless,  they  were  con- 
tinually doing, — and  be  forgiven.  But  to  revile 
God,  the  very  spirit  of  God,  to  call  that  devilish, 
— that  was  past  forgiveness.  Not  that  there  is 
any  sin,  which,  being  repented  of,  will  not  be 
forgiven, — repentance  and  forgiveness  are  one, 
so  he  taught  (Luke  vii.), — but  because  the  per- 
versity of  these  Pharisees  struck  Jesus  as  past 
repentance.  What  access  could  repentance  gain 
to  hearts  which  denounced  the  good  spirit  which 
alone  inspires  penitential  feelings? 

How  profoundly  Jesus  was  moved  on  this  oc- 
casion, into  what  a  heat  of  sacred  passion  he  was 
thrown  by  the  vile  charge,  is  strikingly  mani- 
fested,— and  here  is  one  of  those  unconscious 
harmonies  with  the  truth  of  nature  in  which  the 
Gospels  abound,  and  which  defy  imitation, — by 
the  manner  in  which  he  was  affected  by  certain 
interruptions  that  occurred.  When  some  one 
called  out  to  him  that  his  mother  wanted  him, 
transported  for  the  moment  out  of  himself  and  of 
all  his  natural  relations,  he  exclaimed,  "  Who  is 
my  mother?"  And  when  a  woman  in  the  crowd, 
upon  bearing  mention  of  his  mother,  cried  out, 
"  What  a  blessed  woman  your  mother  must   be 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         43 

to  have  such  a  son  !"  he  turned  upon  her  with  the 
exclamation,  "Blessed  rather  are  they  who  hear 
the  word  of  God  and  keep  it!"  What  thought 
not  in  accord  with  the  emotion  that  then  absorbed 
him  could  then  have  been  suggested  that  would 
not  have  seemed  to  him  utterly  out  of  place  ? 
Least  of  all  could  he  then  endure  the  intrusion 
of  any  allusion  to  himself  personally  or  to  his 
personal  relations. 

When  Jesus  appears  to  be  calmly  enunciating 
universal  truths,  mere  generalities,  it  will  almost 
always  be  found  that  he  is,  in  reality,  deeply 
moved,  and  giving  utterance  to  the  strong  lan- 
guage of  passion;  and  this  is  never  to  be  taken 
without  abatement.  To  see  how  human,  how 
real  he  was,  we  must  keep  in  mind  that  he  spoke 
not  from  any  external  dictation,  but  as  he  was 
prompted  from  within,  out  of  the  abundance  of 
a  heart  so  full  that  at  every  touch  it  brimmed 
over. 

When  I  pause  over  such  strong  language  as 
the  following :  "  If  a  man  hate  not  his  father  and 
mother  .  .  .  he  cannot  be  my  cUscipl  ;"  and  again, 
"  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  y<  shall 
say  in  this  sycamine^tree3  Be  thou  plucked  up  by  the 


44         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

roots,  or  to  this  mountain,  Be  thou  cast  into  the  sea, 
and  they  wiR  obey  you" — [observe,  by  the  way, 
how  pointed  this  language  is;  "  this  sycamine" 
"  this  mountain."  Were  this  latter  utterance  not 
his  own,  but  put  into  his  mouth  after  his  time, 
would  it  have  had  this  particularity?  Would  it 
not  have  been  trees  and  mountains  in  general 
that  would  have  been  instanced  ?  Why  a  syca- 
mine ?  Why  this  sycamine  ?  Why  this  moun- 
tain ?  For  the  plain  reason  that  a  sycamine  and 
a  mountain  were  near  at  hand,  in  full  view,  at  the 
moment,] — is  it  conceivable,  I  ask  myself,  that 
such  language  would  have  been  attributed  to 
Jesus  if  he  had  not  uttered  it;  and  if  he  uttered 
it,  accompanied  as  it  doubtless  was  by  the  com- 
manding emphasis  of  the  voice  and  the  eye,  it 
must  needs  have  buried  itself  deep,  as  it  has  done, 
in  the  memory  of  mankind.  To  my  ear,  passages 
of  this  kind  have  the  thrilling  ring  of  the  pro- 
foundest  passionate  conviction,  of  a  faith  which 
these  forms  of  speech,  bold  as  they  are,  only 
feebly  express. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  when  gasping  in  the 
agonies  of  a  violent  death,  he  who  declared 
hatred  of    father   and   mother  the   condition    of 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         45 

fellowship  with  him,  spent  his  last  breath  in  care 
for  his  own  mother,  and  that,  while  he  set  no 
bounds  to  the  power  of  faith,  so  far  from  ever 
being  represented  as  uprooting  trees  or  overturn- 
ing mountains,  or  committing  any  similar  ex- 
travagance, he  never  even  sought  occasions,  but 
rather  avoided  them,  to  display  even  the  least 
extraordinary  instances  of  a  power  which  he 
described  in  such  unqualified  terms. 

I  may  be  reminded  here  of  the  story  of  the 
fig-tree  withering  at  his  word.  What  is  to  be 
said  of  that?  Does  not  that  represent  him  as 
exercising  a  somewhat  extravagant  power  ?  Is  it 
not  a  fable  or  an  exaggeration  ?  Perhaps.  But 
it  is  to  be  observed  that  it  contains  not  a  word 
intimating  that  Jesus  had  any  thought  of  exert- 
ing an  extraordinary  power.  Xo  effect  of  his 
imprecation  was  visible  at  the  time.  Neither 
was  it  he,  but  his  disciples,  who  called  attention 
to  the  tree  the  next  day.  The  story  is  that,  upon 
finding  no  fruit  on  the  tree,  he  cursed  it.  So 
Peter  designated  the  action,  which  it  would 
seem,  then,  was  an  ejaculation  of  disappoint- 
ment. If  we  presume  to  sit  in  judgment  upon 
him  therefor,  we  must  give  him  the   benefit  of 


46         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  extenuating;  probability  that  the  exclamation 
was  wrung  from  him  by  extreme  exhaustion  and 

his  sore  need  of  refreshment.  Were  I  to  affirm 
that  the   tree  withered   through  an   inscrutable 

affinity  between  it  and  the  powerful  nature  of 
Jesus,  I  might  appeal,  in  support  of  the  idea, 
to  distinguished  naturalists,  who  have  so  much 
to  say  about  the  nerves  of  plants,  and  are  so 
busily  gathering  proofs  that  it  is  the  touch,  not 
of  Nature  alone,  but  of  Science  as  well,  that  is 
making  all  organized  forms  of  existence,  down 
to  the  lowest,  kin. 

Here  I  am  led  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  it 
essential  to  a  just  sense  of  the  greatness  of  Jesus 
that  he  should  be  thought  never  to  have  suc- 
cumbed to  the  unavoidable  infirmities  of  the 
imperfect  nature  that  he  shared  with  us  all. 
There  is  none  good  but  One.  It  is  conceded  b}T 
those  who  find  but  little  that  is  credible  in  the 
Gospels  that  the  most  remarkable  things  con- 
tained therein,  being,  morally  regarded,  too  great 
to  have  been  invented,  arc  probably  true.  But 
to  my  thinking,  it  is  only  the  great  things  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  that  are  recorded.  Only  such 
had    the    force    to    get  written.     There    were,  I 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY.         47 

doubt  not,  many  small  occasions  in  his  life,  as 
there  are  in  the  life  of  every  breather  on  this 
earth,  when  there  were  visible  in  him  the  com- 
mon weaknesses  of  our  nature.  But  they  were 
lost  to  sight  in  the  exceeding  lustre  of  his  great 
qualities.  Fully  recognizing  this  probability,  I 
do  not  find  my  sense  of  his  unrivalled  moral 
elevation  lessened  thereby,  but  deepened  rather. 
It  brings  him  all  the  nearer  to  us,  and  we  see 
more  clearly  how  great  he  was.  Even  in  his 
public  career,  in  the  course  of  his  great  work,  he 
had  severe  struggles  with  human  weakness,  when 
it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  should  die,  and  the 
cup  that  was  given  him  to  drink  had  a  deadly 
bitterness.  The  wonder  and  the  glory  of  it  all 
was  that,  impassioned  as  he  was,  he  was  never 
confused  nor  incoherent,  never  lost  himself,  save 
in  the  Highest  which  is  self-gain, — was  never 
taken  off  his  feet  by  the  tumultuous  tide  of  public 
feeling,  whichever  way  it  turned,  but  was  always 
sovereign  master  of  himself  and  the  situation. 

VI.  I  have  adduced,  as  evidence  of  the  early 
origin   of  the  Gospels,  the  absence,  in  the  first 

three  especially,  of  explanatory  comments.    They 


48         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

never  discuss,  but  only  relate  incidents;  never 
stop   to    connect    or   reconcile   them    with    one 

another,  paying'  little  regard  to  any  order,  even 
to  the  order  of  time, — all  which  accords  with 
the  conclusion  that  they  are  memorabilia,  compi- 
lations of  various  separate  accounts  which  were 
in  existence  and  circulation  before  the  followers 
of  Jesus  began  to  speculate  about  his  life,  and 
the  history  to  crystallize  into  systematic  and 
dogmatic  shapes,  the  tendency  to  which  began 
very  early,  as  the  peculiar  character  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  testifies. 

The  style  of  the  first  three  Gospels,  which  thus 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  written 
well-nigh  contemporaneously  with  the  events 
they  narrate,  is  interesting  in  another  respect. 
It  is  precisely  this  anecdotical  character  of  the 
Gospels  which  enables  us  to  form  ideas  of  the 
actors  in  the  scenes  narrated,  far  more  distinct 
and  vivid  than  could  be  had  from  the  most  elab- 
orate description  of  their  persons.  It  cannot 
be  supposed  that  the  writers  had  any  thought 
of  portraying  character.  Had  they  attempted 
it,  and  had  they  been  ever  so  well  qualified  for 
the  work,  they  never  could   have   >ucceeded  in 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         49 

producing  such  lifelike  portraits  as  we  may  now 
gather  from  the  facts  narrated.  No  mention 
whatever  is  made  of  the  personal  qualities  of 
these  individuals ;  but  from  what  they  are  re- 
ported as  saying  and  doing  we  learn  at  once 
what  manner  of  persons  they  were. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  case  of  Mary  and 
Martha  as  instances  of  this  unconscious  por- 
traiture of  character.  Here,  I  trust,  I  shall  be 
pardoned  for  quoting  myself;  I  do  so  with  less 
hesitation,  as  the  publications  from  which  I  quote 
are,  I  believe,  nearly  or  wholly  out  of  print. 

Of  these  two  women  we  have  only  one  or  two 
notices,  and  yet  how  finished  the  result !  "  Of 
Mary  it  is  related  that  on  a  certain  occasion  she 
came,  and,  standing  behind  Jesus,  as  he  reclined 
at  table,  poured  a  very  costly  and  fragrant  oint- 
ment upon  his  head  in  token  of  her  profound 
veneration  for  him.  AVe  are  also  told  that,  at 
another  time,  when  he  was  visiting  these  friends 
of  his,  Martha,  busying  herself  in  the  oflices  of 
hospitality,  was  hurt  with  Mary,  and  complained 
of  her  to  Jesus,  because  she  sate  idly  at  his  feet 
and  gave  her  (Martha)  no  assistance  in  pro- 
viding  for   the    company.      This    is    all    that  is 


50         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

told  of  these  two  sisters,  save  the  mention  of 
them  in  the  account  of  Lazarus,  to  which  I  shall 
shortly  refer. 

"  But  little  as  it  is,  no  writer  of  fiction,  not 
even  Shakespeare,  has  ever  by  such  slight  and 
so  few  strokes  produced  such  lifelike  portraits. 
We  understand  what  manner  of  women  Martha 
and  Mary  were  as  readily  as  if  we  had  long  been 
personally  acquainted  with  them.  We  distinguish 
them  at  a  glance.  Martha  was  of  a  matter-of-fact 
nature.  When  so  eminent  a  person  and  so  dear 
a  friend  as  Jesus  came  to  see  her,  her  first  and 
only  thought  was  to  provide  most  hospitably  for 
his  bodily  comfort.  She  set  herself  at  once  at 
work  to  place  before  him  the  best  and  all  that  the 
house  afforded.  It  was  not  in  her  to  think  that 
she  could  show  him  any  greater  attention.  Mary 
was  of  a  very  different  nature,  full  of  sensibility, 
appreciating  the  exalted  qualities  of  Jesus,  for- 
getting everything  in  his  presence  but  the  charm 
of  his  discourse.  The  food  that  was  to  her  taste 
her  sister  knew  not  of. 

"Observe  now  how  admirably,  and  all  the  more 
admirably  because  undesignedly,  the  respective 
characters  of  these  two  women  are  maintained 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  51 

in  the  passage  of  the  history  that  relates  the 
Eaising  of  Lazarus.  When  word  came  that 
Jesus  was  on  his  way  to  the  house,  it  is  Martha 
who  was  the  first  to  go  to  meet  him.  At  first 
sight  we  should  expect  that  it  would  have  been 
Mary  who  would  be  the  first  to  hasten  to  wel- 
come him,  as  her  interest  in  him  was  by  far 
the  deeper.  But  that  Mary,  mourning  for  her 
brother,  should  have  been  secluded  in  a  retired 
part  of  the  house,  as  the  custom  of  the  time  and 
country  allowed,  is  in  accordance  with  her  char- 
acteristic sensibility.  She  went  '  quickly,'  how- 
ever, to  meet  Jesus  the  instant  she  was  told  of 
his  approach.  But  Martha  heard  of  his  coming 
first,  because  her  nature,  rendering  intolerable 
to  her  the  quiet  which  Mary  sought  in  her  grief, 
caused  her  to  find  her  comfort  in  her  active 
household  cares,  and  consequently  she  was  in 
that  part  of  the  house  where  the  coming  of  Jesus 
would  be  first  announced.  It  is  not  likely  that 
Martha  forgot  Mary,  or  that  it  did  not  occur  to 
her  what  comfort  it  would  be  to  her  sister  to 
know  that  Jesus  was  at  hand.  But  Martha 
neither  went  nor  sent  to  let  Mary  know  that  he 
was  coming.    She  started  off  by  herself  to  go  and 


52         JESUS,    THE    HEAKT   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

meet  him;  And  it  is  so  entirely  in  character 
with  the  jealousy  of  her  sister,  which  she  had 
shown  on  the  only  other  occasion  in  which  she 
appears  in  the  history,  that  we  may  naturally 
surmise  that  she  went  to  meet  Jesus  without  first 
letting  her  sorrowing  sister  know  of  his  coming 
in  order  that  she  might  see  him  all  by  herself, 
without  having  Alary  present  to  engross  his 
attention.  When  Jesus  was  with  them,  and 
Mary  was  present,  holding  converse  with  him  as 
Martha  could  not,  the  character  of  Martha 
authorizes  the  suspicion  that  she  had  an  uncom- 
fortable feeling  of  inferiority,  especially  if  she 
were  the  elder.  Whether  older  than  Alary  or 
not,  she  was  probably  accustomed,  by  virtue  of 
her  practical  temperament  and  Mary's  indiffer- 
ence to  household  cares,  to  take  the  lead  in  do- 
mestic concerns;  and,  therefore,  it  could  hardly 
have  been  agreeable  to  her,  especially  when 
company  was  present,  to  appear  to  occupy  a 
subordinate  position. 

"  Observe  again,  when  Jesus  and  Martha  met, 
how  strikingly  it  appears,  and  yet  without  the 
narrator's  giving  the  slightest  sign  that  he  was 
aware  of  it,  that  she  was  wholly  unable  to  sustain 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY.  53 

any  conversation  with  him.  Everything  he  said 
staggered  her.  She  could  not  take  in  what  he 
said.  It  was  too  great  for  her.  When  he  told 
her  that  her  brother  would  rise  again,  she  shrank 
from  the  idea,  and  sought  relief  from  it  in  her 
traditional  faith  in  the  final  resurrection.  And 
when  he  went  on  to  say  (in  those  profoundly 
significant  words)  that  He  was  the  resurrection 
and  the  life,  and  (virtually)  that  her  brother, 
though  dead,  yet  having  had  faith  in  Him,  would 
still  live,  and  that  she  herself,  living  and  be- 
lieving in  Him,  would  never  die,  and  then  de- 
manded of  her  whether  she  believed  this,  again, 
confounded  by  the  new,  great  thoughts  he  pre- 
sented, she  took  refuge  in  a  general  confession 
of  her  faith  in  him  as  the  Messiah, — and  re- 
treated. Is  it  not  evident  that  he  startled  and 
overpowered  her?  He  was  too  much  for  her. 
She  could  not  talk  with  him.  She  quitted  his 
presence,  and  went  and  told  Mary  that  Jesus 
was  coming,  and  that  she  was  wanted.  Mary 
might  understand  him,  she  could  not.  So  she 
was  forced  to  feel,  and  the  virtual  confession  of 
her   discomfiture,    which    she    had   to    make   in 

having  to  call  Mary,  could  not,  chagrined  as  she 

5* 


54         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

was,  be  uttered  aloud.  And  therefore  it  was 
that  she  spoke  to  Mary,  '  secretly,' — in  a  whisper. 

"  Again,  we  have  a  glimpse  of  Martha's  nature 
in  the  objection  she  interposed  to  the  removal  of 
the  stone  from  the  tomb, — as  if  Jesus  did  not 
know  what  he  was  doing.  Mary's  silence  speaks, 
and  tells  us  what  manner  of  person  she  was  more 
significantly  than  any  words. 

"  Never,  in  any  work  of  fiction,  with  strokes  so 
few  and  delicate,  has  personal  character  been  so 
exquisitely  and  yet  so  incidentally  preserved." 

In  the  same  way  Pontius  Pilate  is  undesign- 
edly porti\Tyed.  "A  man  of  the  world,  asking, 
What  is  truth?  and  indifferent  to  the  answer: 
indifferent,  because,  restless  and  uneasy  in  the 
embarrassing  circumstances  in  which  he  found 
himself,  he  was  in  no  mood  for  so  general  a 
question,  having  put  the  question  without  really 
any  strong  interest  in  it  at  any  time,  least  of  all 
then; — a  sceptic,  probably,  as  to  the  gods,  and 
yet  seized  with  a  vague,  superstitious  dread  that 
here  might  be  some  deity  in  disguise,  when, 
utterly  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the  silent  self- 
possession  of  the  prisoner  in  such  awful  circum- 
stances,  he    was    told   that   tlie    man    had    called 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         55 

himself  the    Son    of  God,   and   word   came  to 
him   in  the  judgment-hall   from   his   wife,  bid- 
ding  him  beware  how  he  dealt  with  the  person 
standing  before  him,  as  she  had  had  a  remark- 
able dream  about  him ;— in  his  embarrassment 
catching  at  the  weakest  and  most  discreditable 
subterfuges  to  evade  the  responsibility  of  sen- 
tencing this  inscrutable  person  to  death ;— will- 
ing that  Herod  or  the  Jews  should  do  the  deed, 
if°he  might  only  escape  doing  it  himself;  sacri- 
ficing his  pride  to  his  fear  by  sending  Jesus,  as 
an  overture  of  kindness,  to  Herod,  with  whom 
he  was  on  no  good  terms ;— made  blind  by  the 
same  selfish  fears  to  common  justice,  pronounc- 
ing Jesus  innocent,  and  ordering  him  in  the  same 
breath  to  be  scourged,  in  the  hope  that  some- 
thin-  less  than   the   fatal    Cross,  the    scourge, 
would  appease  the  Priests,  when,  as  a  concession 
on  his  part,  it  would  be  sure  to  encourage  them 
to  persist;— poorly  hiding   under  a  ridicule  of 
the  royal   pretensions  of  Jesus,  which  we  may 
well  suspect  to  have  been  affected,  his  terror  at 
the  representations  that  might  be  made  to  his 
imperial  master  at  Rome,  the  most  suspicious  of 
despots,  were  he  to  let  a  man  go  free,  charged 


56         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

with  making  himself  a  king ;— in  attempting  to 
force  Jesus  to  tell  whence  he  came,  betraying 
his  weakness  by  vaunting  his  power ; — over- 
coming his  vague  awe  of  Jesus  by  his  more  defi- 
nite dread  of  Caesar ; — yielding  Jesus  up  to  be 
crucified,  flattering  himself  that  he  could  cleanse 
his  conscience  of  innocent  blood  as  easily  as  he 
could  dash  water  from  his  hands; — and,  finally, 
for  the  humiliating  straits  to  which  he  could  not 
avoid  being  conscious  of  having  been  driven  by 
the  hated  Jews,  meanly  revenging  himself  upon 
them  by  causing  to  be  affixed  to  the  Cross,  over 
the  head  of  Jesus,  an  inscription,  of  which  he 
refused  to  allow  any  alteration,  written  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  as  well  as  in  Hebrew,  so  that  it- 
might  be  read  by  foreigners  as  well  as  natives, 
and  the  ridicule  be  cast  upon  the  proud  Jewish 
people  of  having  a  miserable  man,  covered  with 
the  ignominy  of  crucifixion,  for  their  king. 
Such  was  the  Roman  Procurator,  Pontius  Pilate, 
as  undesignedly  described  in  the  Gospel  narra- 
tives. Every  act  and  every  word  ascribed  to 
him  are  in  entire  consistency  with  the  idea  of  a 
weak  man  suddenly  confronted  with  an  occasion 
to  which    he   was  wholly   unequal,   a    man,   not 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY.         57 

naturally  cruel,  but  rendered  so,  in  the  circum- 
stances, by  fear  and  utter  want  of  moral  prin- 
ciple." 

I  remember  seeing,  when  I  was  a  child,  a  card 
upon  which  was  painted  a  picture  representing  a 
funeral  urn  overhung  by  a  weeping  willow.  It 
was  designed  in  France  in  the  time  of  the  old 
Revolution.  On  close  examination,  the  outlines 
of  the  urn  and  of  the  branches  of  the  willow 
formed  the  profiles  of  Louis  XVI  and  Marie 
Antoinette.  It  was  a  covert  tribute  paid  by  the 
royalists  to  the  memory  of  the  king  and  queen. 
It  is  in  a  similar  way  that  the  likenesses  of  the 
actors  in  the  Gospel  narratives  are  portrayed, 
with  this  great  difference  however,  that  while 
those  royal  profiles  were  produced  by  design, 
the  portraits  in  the  Gospels  are  drawn  without 
design,  unconsciously.  They  are  accidental  to 
the  scenes  described.  The  writers  have  told 
more  than  they  knew  that  they  were  telling. 

AVhat  more  decisive  proof  of  the  historical 
truth  of  these  Writings  can  be  desired  than  this, 
that,  without  stretching  or  straining,  by  the  light 
thrown  upon  them  by  familiar  principles  of 
human  nature,  the  persons  who  figure  in  them 


58         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

pass  before  us,  distinct,  natural,  self-consistent 
individuals  ?  Brief  and  sketchy  as  they  are,  and 
just  because  they  are  so, — because  they  state  only 
matters  of  fact,  with  never  a  thought  of  depicting 
a  single  feature  of  any  person  introduced, — they 
give  us  such  a  knowledge  of  the  persons  whom 
they  mention  that,  once  thus  seen,  these  persons 
are  as  recognizable  as  so  many  familiar  ac- 
quaintances. Could  a  disjointed  collection  of 
fables  by  any  possibility  yield  such  a  result  ? 

It  is  in  the  same  way  that  we  are  made  ac- 
quainted with  the  central  personage  of  the  his- 
tory. To  my  mind,  as  I  have  repeatedly  taken 
occasion  to  say,  the  character  of  Jesus  is  hardly 
more  wonderful  than  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
portrayed.  Not  an  attempt  is  made  to  describe 
him.  Various  scenes,  of  which  he  is  the  centre, 
are  related,  thrown  together  with  scarcely  any 
arrangement,  and  how  sublime  the  result !  A 
character  as  natural  as  it  is  original,  as  human  as 
it  is  divine, — an  Ideal  which  Christendom  is  now 
struggling  to  realize,  and  which,  were  it  realized, 
would  create  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth ! 

It  would  be  out  of  the  course  of  human  ex- 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         59 

perience  to  suppose  that  the  narrators  have  never 
put  words  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  which  he  did 
not  use,  or  that  they  have  not  here  and  there 
stated,  not  what  he  said,  but  what  they  under- 
stood him  to  mean.  That  we  shall  ever  attain 
to  so  intimate  a  knowledge  of  him  as  to  be  able, 
usins:  our  knowledge  as  a  criterion,  to  distinguish 
with  precision  what  belongs  to  him  and  what  to 
his  reporters,  in  other  words,  that  we  shall  ever 
have  it  in  our  power  to  extricate  him  entirely 
from  the  medium  through  which  his  imao;e  is 
transmitted  to  us,  I  hardly  venture  to  predict. 

There  is  one  respect,  however,  in  which  this 
can  be  clone  with  considerable  confidence. 

Certain  passages  of  his  history  show,  as  one 
trait  of  his  character,  his  singular  freedom  from 
that  pride  of  race,  which  was  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  his  countrymen,  a  pride  all  the  more 
bigoted  for  having  its  root  in  religion.  One  of 
his  first  public  utterances, — it  was  in  the  syna- 
gogue at  Nazareth, — was  a  rebuke  of  that  fierce 
Jewish  sentiment, — a  rebuke  so  bold  that  his 
hearers  were  filled  with  wrath,  and  ready  to  tear 
him  in  pieces  on  the  spot.  He  was  guilty  in  their 
eyes  of  profaning  their  Holy  Writings  by  quoting 


60         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

them  to  prove  that  the  God  of  Israel  had  once 
and  again  passed  by  his  chosen  people  to  show 
favor  to  base  Gentile  dogs. 

Mark,  furthermore,  the  grand  inference  that 
he  instantly  drew  from  the  faith  in  him  mani- 
fested by  the  Roman  centurion.  There  was  at 
once  unveiled  before  him  a  vision  of  the  nations 
flocking  from  the  East  and  the  West,  from  the 
North  and  the  South,  to  the  divine  kingdom. 

Again,  the  parable  of  the  feast  from  which  the 
chosen  guests  were  excluded,  and  to  which  the 
poor  from  all  the  highways  and  hedges  were 
summoned,  and,  still  more  pointedly,  the  im- 
mortal parable  by  which  the  Jew  was  made  to 
acknowledge  the  odious  Samaritan,  rather  than 
priest  or  Levite,  as  his  neighbor,  to  be  loved  as 
he  loved  himself,  prove  how  for  Jesus  was  in 
advance  of  his  country  and  his  time  in  the  recog- 
nition of  the  brotherhood  of  mankind. 

That  his  was  no  "  closet  philanthropy,  dream- 
ing of  impracticable  reforms,  and  grudging  the 
cost  of  effectual  relief,"  no  barren  abstraction 
only  intellectually  discerned,  but  a  profound, 
active  conviction,  close  to  his  heart,  is  seen  in  the 
readiness  with  which  he  put  it  into  any  shape 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         61 

that  occasion  might  require.  It  was  in  daily 
practical  use.  We  are  justified,  therefore,  in 
regarding  his  freedom  from  Jewish  exclusiveness, 
his  recognition  of  human  brotherhood,  not  merely 
as  a  precept  or  doctrine  which  he  taught,  but  as 
a  vital  principle  of  his  being,  as  a  component  of 
his  character,  distinguishing  him  not  only  as  a 
teacher,  but  as  a  man. 

Here  then  is  one  respect  in  which  his  personal 
character,  being  thus  known,  becomes  a  touch- 
stone whereby  it  may  be  determined  whether, 
in  certain  cases,  he  really  said  or  did  what  is 
attributed  to  him,  or  whether  he  was  misunder- 
stood, and  consequently  not  correctly  reported. 
His  reporters  were  Jews;  and  it  is  much  more 
likely  that  they  should  put  a  Jewish  construction 
upon  his  words  or  acts  than  that  he  should  have 
spoken  so  entirely  out  of  character  as,  for  ex- 
ample, he  is  recorded  to  have  done  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  where,  in  the  midst 
of  one  of  his  grandest  utterances,  a  narrow  Jewish 
word  occurs.  The  time  is  coming,  he  told  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  when  neither  the  Jerusalem 
of  the  Jews  nor  the  Mount  Gerizim  of  her  coun- 
trymen would   be  specially  hallowed,  when  not 

6 


62         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  place  but  the  spirit  would  be  acceptable. 
"  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit.''  I  cannot  believe  that 
inspired,  filled  as  he  was  at  the  moment  with 
this  great  truth,  it  could  have  occurred  to  him 
to  make  the  invidious  distinction  which  is  made 
in  what  he  is  further  reported  to  have  said  to 
the  woman  :  "  You  (Samaritans)  ivorship  you  know 
not  what.  We  know  what  we  ivorship,for  salvation 
is  of  the  Jews."  I  suspect  this  to  be  a  marginal 
comment  of  some  Jewish  transcriber  that  has 
crept  into  the  text. 

In  order  to  render  the  appeal  to  the  character 
of  Jesus,  in  any  questionable  case,  as  a  test  de- 
cisive and  satisfactory,  it  will  not  be  enough,  I 
admit,  to  allege  an  inconsistency,  we  must  be 
able  to  show  with  a  good  degree  of  probability 
how  he  came  to  be  erroneously  reported. 

Take,  for  example,  the  story  of  the  Transfig- 
uration. It  is  on  the  face  of  it  inconsistent  with 
the  spiritual  character  of  Jesus.  His  glory  is 
moral.  An  external,  visible  illumination  of  his 
person  is  at  variance  with  the  inward  scope  and 
tenor  of  his  teachings.  But  I  cannot  dismiss 
the  story  altogether  on  this  account  alone.     The 


JESUS,    THE    HEAHT   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         63 

question  remains  :  How  came  such  a  story  to  be 
told  ?  There  must  have  occurred  something  that 
gave  rise  to  it.  Upon  a  critical  examination  of 
the  different  narratives  of  the  scene  we  find  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  alleged  transfig- 
uration of  the  person  of  Jesus  is  resolvable  into 
a  dream  of  Peter's,  occasioned  in  part  by  a  cloud 
that  passed  over  the  mountain  attended  by  thun- 
der and  lightning.  The  grounds  of  this  inter- 
pretation of  the  passage  I  have  stated  at  length 
elsewhere,  and  will  not  repeat  them  here.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  that  it  appears  to  me  to  be  required 
by  sound  principles  of  criticism.  It  is  not  re- 
sorted to  merely  to  avoid  the  literal  understand- 
ing of  the  passage  and  to  explain  away  a  miracle. 
In  the  passage  which  tells  of  the  suffering 
woman  who  went  behind  Jesus  and  touched  him 
in  the  belief  that  the  touch  would  cure  her,  one 
of  the  Gospels  puts  into  his  mouth  certain  words 
(I  perceive  that  virtue  has  (join  out  of  me)  which  wo 
may  be  confident  he  never  uttered.  The  woman, 
suffering  under  an  infirmity  pronounced  unclean 
by  the  Jewish  law  and  unwilling  that  it  should 
be  known,  trusted  to  being  secretly  relieved  by 
touching  his    clothes.     A  wild   fancy  it    seems. 


64         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

But  when  we  duly  weigh  the  probable   circum- 
stances  of  the  case  and   consider  what  extraor- 
dinary things  were  taking  place,  how  all  men's 
minds  were  excited,  with  what  awe  and  trans- 
porting hope  the  sick  and  diseased  were  regard- 
ins;  Jesus;  how  this  woman,  having  exhausted 
all  known  means  of  relief,  was  moved   by  all 
that  she  had  seen   and  heard  done  by  him,  we 
shall  perceive  that  it  was  simple  human  nature 
in  her  to  seize  the  idea  that  she  could  be  thus 
healed.     When  she  pressed  through  the  crowd, 
all  in  a  tremble,  with  her  whole    soul   in   the 
act,  is  it  conceivable   that,  when    she  got  near 
enough  to  him,  she  barely  touched  him  with  her 
finger-tips?     Through  some  gap  in  the  throng 
she  clutched  at  his  garments  with  a  grasp  made 
convulsive  by  her  emotion,  and  at  the  touch  the 
secret  vital  forces  of  her  nature  were  shocked 
into   overpowering    activity,   and   she   felt    that 
she   was  well.     It  was   by  the  quick,  energetic 
twitch    that   she    gave   his    clothes    that   Jesus 
divined  that  it  was  given  with  a  purpose.     He 
instantly  stopped   and  demanded   to  know  who 
it   was   that   had    done   this   thing.      Surmising 
the  true  state  of  the  case,  that  it  was  some  one 


JESUS,   THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY.  65 

who  expected  some  benefit  from  the  act,  he  de- 
sired to  know  what  it  meant.  When  the  woman 
came  forward  and  acknowledged  that  it  was  she 
who  had  caught  at  his  garments  and  told  her 
story  and  declared  herself  relieved,  he  assured 
her  that  it  was  her  own  faith  that  had  healed 
her,  thus  correcting  her  impression  that  there 
was  a  miraculous  healing  power  in  him.  He 
could  not,  therefore,  have  said  that  he  felt  the 
virtue  go  out  of  lam.  How  he  came  to  be  reported 
as  so  saying  it  is  easy  to  see.  The  bystanders, 
like  the  woman,  believed  that  he  was  possessed 
of  a  peculiar  gift,  that  a  miraculous  power  dwelt 
in  him.  One  of  the  three  narratives  relates  the 
incident  briefly  and  says  nothing  of  the  virtue's 
going  out  of  him.  Another  mentions  it,  but  does 
not  say  that  Jesus  said  anything  about  it.  It 
states  it  obviously  as  the  inference  of  the  peo- 
ple. When  we  consider  how  accounts  of  even 
ordinary  incidents  always  grow  and  vary,  we  see 
how  natural  it  was  that  the  impression  should 
have  gone  abroad  that  Jesus  said  that  he  per- 
ceived the  virtue  go  out  of  him,  and  that  it 
should  be  so  reported. 

This  passage  is  one  of  those  which  many  have 

6* 


66         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  fabulous,  and  there 
is  indeed  an  element  of  the  fabulous  in  it.  But 
it  is  this  fabulous  particular  that  proves  the  reality 
of  the  incident.  The  idea  that  the  woman  was 
cured  by  a  medical  virtue  emanating  from  the 
person  of  Jesus, — that  is  fabulous.  Does  not  this 
misconception  necessarily  presuppose  the  fact 
misconceived  ?  What  more  indubitable  signa- 
ture of  truth  could  a  narrative  show  ?  The  nar- 
rators have  related  an  incident  which  they  did 
not  understand.  Can  fabricators  of  fictions  pos- 
sibly misunderstand  their  own  inventions  ? 

To  turn  to  another  passage  in  which  language 
is  attributed  to  Jesus,  which  it  is  doubtful  whether 
he  ever  used.  On  a  certain  occasion  Peter  asked 
him  what  he  and  his  fellow  disciples,  who  had 
left  all  to  follow  him,  were  to  receive  in  return. 
According  to  one  of  the  Gospels,  the  reply  of 
Jesus  was  a  simple,  emphatic  statement  of  the 
law  of  compensation.  They  who  followed  him, 
he  said,  would  receive  a  hundred  fold  in  this 
world,  and  an  enduring  life  in  the  world  to  come. 
The  self-sacrificing  service  of  Truth  is  its  own 
exceeding  reward  now  and  forever.  But  in  one 
Gospel  he  is  reported  as  saying  further,  that  the 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         67 

Twelve  should  sit  on  twelve  thrones  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel;  and  in  another  he  is  rep- 
resented as  appointing  them  to  these  offices.  I 
cannot  believe  that  he  ever  made  such  a  promise 
or  such  appointments,  because  it  is  so  unlike 
him.  He  looked  for  no  worldly  offices  nor 
honors  either  for  himself  or  for  his  friends.  He 
accounted  himself  and  them  doomed  to  suffering 
and  death.  "When  two  of  his  disciples  petitioned 
him  for  the  two  highest  places  in  his  kingdom, 
"  Can  you  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  am  to  drink 
of,"  he  instantly  exclaimed,  "  and  be  baptized 
with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  with  ?" 
Service, — self-sacrificing  service,  was  the  onlj^ 
greatness  in  his  eyes.  Besides,  it  is  plain  how 
this  promise  came  to  be  ascribed  to  him.  His 
disciples,  infatuated  with  the  idea  that  he  was  the 
magnificent  Messiah,  were  following  him  in  the 
confident  expectation  that  he  would  enrich  and 
ennoble  them.  Accordingly,  when  he  assured 
them  they  would  be  paid  a  hundred  times  over 
for  all  that  they  had  given  up  for  his  sake,  they 
had  but  one  idea  of  the  reward  they  were  to  re- 
ceive. They  could  conceive  of  no  other.  They 
were  to  be   compensated   with   worldly  honors. 


68         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

This  was  what  they  doubted  not  that  he  meant; 
and  consequently  they  have  reported  him  as  say- 
ing what  they  understood  him  to  mean. 

To  mention  one  instance  more.  I  doubt 
whether  he  said  certain  things  that  are  ascribed 
to  him  in  the  accounts  of  the  Last  Supper.  No 
part  of  his  history  has  been  more  sadly  misunder- 
stood, or  given  occasion  to  more  monstrous  errors. 
It  does  not  appear  ever  to  have  been  considered 
what  an  hour  of  agonizing  emotion  that  was  to 
him.  The  awful  end  was  at  hand.  He  was 
momentarily  expecting  to  be  arrested  and  dragged 
away  to  a  lonely  and  violent  death.  The  traitor 
who  was  plotting  against  his  life  was  there  before 
him.  For  the  sake  of  his  humble  friends,  from 
whom  he  was  about  to  be  torn,  he  wras,  with 
unheard-of  strength  of  mind,  crushing  down  an 
agony  of  suspense  so  terrible  that  it  seemed  to 
him, — as  he  said  after  they  had  left  the  table  and 
were  in  the  garden,  where  the  long-sustained 
tension  of  his  mind  gave  way  utterly  for  a  while, 
— as  if  he  should  die.  His  soul  was  sick  unto 
death.  Images  of  horror  rose  before  him;  the 
commonest  objects  became  omens  and  portents. 
Most  touchingly  characteristic  is  it  of  him  and  of 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         69 

our  human  nature,  that  the  broken  bread  and  the 
red-flowing  wine  should  speak  to  him  of  hie  own 
lacerated  flesh  and  streaming  blood.     So  vividly 
did  the  resemblance  flash  upon  his  tortured  im- 
agination that  for  the  instant  the  visible  vanished 
behind  the  invisible,  the  signs  disappeared  in  the 
grim  presence  of  the  things  signified;  and  as  he 
broke  the  bread  and  poured  out  the  red  wine  he 
exclaimed,   "It  is  my  body!     It  is  my  blood! 
Take  !  eat !  drink !     I  will  never  again  drink  of 
the  fruit  of  the  vine."     So  much  only  do  I  feel 
sure  that  he  said.     The  words,  "  till  1  drink  it  m  w 
with  you  in  the  kingdom  of  God;'  are  a  qualifying 
clause  which  I  find  it  more  natural  to  suppose  was 
added  by  his  disciples,  who  could  not  endure  to 
think  that  he  did  not  contemplate  feasting  in  the 
coming  kingdom,  than  to  believe  that  any  such 
proviso  could  have  occurred  to  him  at  a  moment 
of  such  intense  emotion.     The  further  declara- 
tion that  his  blood  was  "  the  blood  of  the  new  testa- 
ment  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  lias  an 
explanatory,  didactic,  dogmatic  air,  alike  incon- 
gruous with  the  profoundly  emotional  state  of  his 
mind.     I  think  I  perceive  how  it  came  to  be  at- 
tributed to  him.     His  disciples,  I  conceive,  were 


70         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

shocked  by  this  sudden  and  startling  allusion 
to  his  blood.  They  knew  not  what  to  make 
of  it.  What  could  it  mean?  The  only  con- 
struction they  could  put  upon  it  after  his  death 
was  that  it  was  an  allusion  suggested  by  the 
season  of  the  Passover  to  the  blood  of  the  Pas- 
chal lamb.  Conceiving  this  to  have  been  his 
meaning,  they  have  again  reported  him  as  say- 
ing in  so  many  words  what  they  believed  that 
he  meant. 

VII.  Whether  we  have  yet  so  intimate  a 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  Jesus  as  to  au- 
thorize interpretations  like  the  foregoing  may 
be  a  question.  There  is  one  quality  of  his, 
however,  which  gives  out  a  strong  light,  putting 
life  into  the  Gospel  narratives  and  harmonizing 
the  whole  history ;  I  do  not  say  that  it  has 
wholly  escaped  notice, — that  could  hardly  be, — 
but  no  adequate  weight  has  been  given  to  it. 
I  refer  to  the  extraordinary  personal  power  of 
Jesus,  to  the  native  strength  of  his  character, 
that  natural  force  which  is  common,  in  every 
variety  of  degree,  to  all  men,  and  which,  sig- 
nified chiefly  through  the  voice   and  the  eye,  is 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         71 

felt  even  by  brutes.  It  existed  in  Jesus  in  an 
unprecedented  measure. 

Strange  is  it,  by  the  way,  that  one  who  was 
distinguished  above  all  men  by  bis  native  force, 
one,  in  comparison  with  whom  we  are  but  phan- 
toms, should  now  have  faded  away  in  the  view 
of  so  many  into  a  dim  vision.  It  is  plain  how  it 
has  happened.  The  errors  that  have  gathered 
so  thickly  around  him  have  so  obscured  and  dis- 
torted the  idea  of  him  that  his  native  human 
qualities  have  ceased  to  be  discoverable. 

His  extraordinary  force  of  character  is  proved 
not  by  any  direct  notices  of  it,  but  again  and 
again  altogether  undesignedly  on  the  part  of 
the  writers.  No  fact  could  be  more  decisively 
established. 

That  he  was  a  person  of  commanding  and 
attractive  presence,  that  there  was  that  in  his 
countenance,  in  his  voice,  in  his  whole  manner, 
that  arrested  notice,  inspired  confidence,  won 
admiration  and  love,  is  apparent  throughout, 
wholly  unconsciously,  and  consequently  far  more 
satisfactorily  than  could  have  been  made  to 
appear  by  the  most  elaborate  description  of  his 
person.      The  common  people  flocked  to  him  in 


72         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

crowds.  "Women  brought  their  infants  for  him 
just  to  touch  them.  One  poor,  outcast  woman 
threw  herself  at  his  feet  and  covered  them  with 
her  kisses,  and  bathed  them  with  her  tears  and 
wiped  them  with  her  hair.  Another  believed 
that  if  she  could  only  touch  the  hern  of  his 
garment  it  would  do  more  than  all  the  physi- 
cians in  the  world  to  relieve  her  of  the  infirmity 
under  which  she  had  long  been  a  sufferer.  It  is 
a  remark  of  Hume's  that  "  admiration  and  ac- 
quaintance are  altogether  incompatible  towards 
any  mortal  creature."  In  contradiction  of  this 
assertion,  which  is  made  even  more  positively 
by  a  common  proverb,  they  who  were  daily  in 
attendance  upon  Jesus,  instead  of  becoming 
familiar  with  him,  regarded  him  with  a  rever- 
ence that  deepened  into  awe.  How  revering  the 
trust  was  with  which  he  had  inspired  them  is 
seen  in  the  ever  memorable  incidents  at  the 
Last  Supper,  in  the  silence,  unbroken  save  by 
one,  with  which  they  submitted  to  the  menial 
office  which  he  knelt  to  discharge  for  them,  and 
in  the  cry  "Is  it  I?  Is  it  I?"  which,  when  he 
told  them  there  was  a  traitor  among  them,  broke 
forth  all  around  the  table,  and  which,  far  more 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         73 

emphatically  than  any  direct  asseveration  of 
their  faith  in  him,  tells  us  how  instinctive  was 
their  conviction  that  they  might  prove  the  basest 
of  traitors  sooner  than  he  could  breathe  a  syl- 
lable that  was  not  true.  What  a  tribute  to  the 
dignity  of  his  presence  was  the  confusion  into 
which  they  were  thrown  who  were  sent  to  arrest 
him  !  How  kingly  must  have  been  his  silence 
when,  friendless  and  forlorn,  with  the  yell  of 
demoniac  bigotry,  athirst  for  his  blood,  ringing 
in  his  ears,  he  stood  before  Pilate,  and  that 
magistrate,  to  whom,  proud  Roman  that  he  was, 
there  could  hardly  be  a  more  contemptible  ob- 
ject than  a  miserable  Jew,  shrunk  from  passing 
sentence  upon  him,  and  resorted  to  every  subter- 
fuge to  avoid  doing  so ! 

That  silence,  by  the  way,  which  Jesus  main- 
tained when  standing  before  Pilate,  seems  to  me 
not  to  be  appreciated.  Nothing  more  appears  to 
be  seen  in  it  but  a  verification  of  the  words  of  the 
prophet :  "  He  teas  led  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and 
as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  opened 
not  Iris  mouth"  But  it  tells  of  a  great  deal  more 
than  unmurmuring  resignation  to  the  inevitable. 

I  see  in  it  a  self-respect,  a  magnanimity,  of  which 

7 


74         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

I  know  no  equal  instance.  Xo  self-concern,  no 
dread  of  the  gathering  horror,  could  move  him  to 
pay  any  heed  to  his  priestly  accusers.  To  reply 
to  them  would  have  been  a  waste  of  breath  which 
that  supreme  hour  was  no  time  for.  He  might 
as  well  have  trifled  away  those  last  moments  in 
talking  to  the  senseless  stones.  To  all  the  cal- 
umnies of  his  enemies,  his  blood  would  be  his 
answer.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  Pilate,  weak 
man  that  he  was,  was  overawed  by  Jesus,  and 
utterly  unable  to  understand  the  greatness  of 
mind  which  the  calm,  self-possessed  behavior  of 
the  prisoner  in  that  terrible  crisis  betokened  ? 

Thus  these  special  and  undesigned  illustrations 
of  the  person  of  Jesus  strengthen  the  belief, 
which  would  be  justified  even  if  we  had  not 
these  particulars,  that  he,  whose  name  has  been 
such  a  power  through  all  these  centuries,  must 
have  been  a  man  of  extraordinary  force  of  char- 
acter. Could  the  common,  vague  idea  of  him 
be  displaced  by  a  just  sense  of  the  quality  of  his 
person,  we  should  be  prepared  to  perceive  how  it 
was  that  at  the  sound  of  his  voice,  at  the  glance 
of  his  eye,  at  the  touch  of  his  hand,  at  his  pres- 
ence, nay.  at  his  bare  name,  all  depressed  spirits 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  75 

were  exhilarated,  disordered  minds  recovered 
their  soundness,  and  the  vital  forces  of  the  sick 
and  the  lame  and  the  blind  were  stimulated  to 
unwonted  sanative  activity.  To  my  mind,  the 
Gospels  are  all  the  more  credible  for  the  ac- 
counts they  contain  of  such  consequences  at- 
tending him. 

"When  due  consideration  is  given  to  the  per- 
sonal quality  of  Jesus,  the  secret  of  his  so-called 
miracles  is  solved,  and  the  idea  that  he  was  pre- 
ternaturally  gifted  is  found  to  be  needless.  The 
force  that  was  native  to  him,  the  power  belonging 
to  him  by  virtue  of  his  being  the  man  he  was, 
and  which  was  felt  in  one  way  or  another  by 
all  who  approached  him, — a  power  inherent  in 
human  nature, — fully  suffices  to  account  for  the 
sudden  recovery  in  his  presence  of  the  nervously 
diseased  at  least.  The  instances  of  this  kind  are 
remarkable.  They  may  justly  be  termed  mira- 
cles in  the  primary  sense  of  the  word,  as  synony- 
mous with  wonders.  But  they  were  as  plainly 
natural  as  any  effect  in  nature.  It  argues  but  a 
feeble  faith  in  that  mystery  in  man  which  we 
name  Spirit  to  doubt,  when  it  was  present  in  so 
full  a  measure  as  it  was  in  Jesus,  whether  it  was 


76         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

equal  to  the  production  of  those  changes  in  the 
deranged  and  the  sick. 

That  some  of  the  cases  are  exaggerations  of 
ordinary  incidents,  or  even  fictions,  is  not  im- 
probable. It  would  be  strange  if,  in  the  univer- 
sal excitement,  when  wonder  ruled  the  hour, 
there  had  gone  abroad  no  exaggerated  and  even 
groundless  reports.  Still,  I  say,  had  we  an  ade- 
quate sense  of  the  illimitable  power  existing  in 
all  men  in  various  degrees,  and  in  Jesus  in  the 
highest  degree,  we  should  be  prepared  even  for 
the  most  extraordinary  of  the  demonstrations  of 
it  related  in  the  Gospels,  always  provided  that 
the  accounts  of  them  bear  intrinsic  marks  of 
being  true. 

Holding  the  marvellous  effects  that  waited  on 
his  steps  to  be  due  to  the  powerful  personality 
of  Jesus,  and  to  have  followed  him  naturally, — 
some  of  these  reported  effects  being  produced 
by  him  even  involuntarily, — we  are  enriched 
with  a  new  sense  of  simplicity  and  truth  as  we 
mark  the  wonderful  strength  of  mind  which  he 
evinced  in  relation  to  them, — more  wonderful 
even  than  the  effects  themselves,  and  to  which  I 
have  already  had  occasion  to  refer.    When  alone, 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  77 

he  suffered  severe  mental  conflicts.  But  so  com- 
plete was  the  self-mastery  in  which  they  resulted, 
that  when  he  returned  from  them  and  was  con- 
fronted with  distracting  realities,  not  a  tremor  of 
undue  self-elation  or  of  self-distrust  disturbed  the 
perfect  balance  of  his  mind.  It  is  clear  to  me  that, 
having  at  heart  only  high,  spiritual  aims,  he  had 
not  anticipated  such  remarkable  physical  effects. 
They  took  him  by  surprise  in  the  first  instance, 
and  he  retreated  from  them  to  solitude  and  prayer. 
Certainly  nothing  apparently  could  be  more 
accidental  and  unlooked-for  than  the  first  in- 
stances of  his  personal  influence  which  are 
recorded.  The  account  of  his  first  appearance 
as  a  teacher  and  of  what  followed  thereupon  is 
of  exceeding  interest,  it  throws  so  strong  a  light 
on  all  that  succeeded.  Upon  the  occasion  of  his 
first  speaking  in  the  synagogue,  he  was  suddenly 
interrupted,  and  the  decorum  of  the  place  broken 
in  upon,  by  a  crazy  man,  who  was  so  affected  by 
the  appearance  and  discourse  of  Jesus,  rendered 
all  the  more  impressive  by  the  awed  silence  of 
the  assembly,  that,  losing  control  of  himself,  and 
giving  expression  to  the  admiration  in  which  we 

may  infer  from  the  eftect  upon  him  that  all  pres- 

7* 


78         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

ent  shared,  he  spoke  out  in  the  character  of  the 
evil  spirit  by  which  he  imagined  himself  to  be 
possessed,  and  addressed  Jesus  as  the  Holy  one 
of  God;  and  when  Jesus  instantly  virtually  com- 
manded him  to  hush,  when  the  personal  influence 
of  Jesus,  which  had  already  impressed  him  so 
powerfully,  was  thus  turned  full  upon  him,  he 
was  so  much  the  more  agitated  that  he  shrieked 
and  fell  down  in  a  fit.  The  convulsions  into 
which  he  was  thrown,  regarded  by  all  present  as 
the  violent  efforts  of  the  foul  spirit,  by  which  he 
was  held  to  be  possessed,  struggling  against  the 
authority  of  Jesus,  succeeded  as  they  were  by  the 
man's  restoration,  at  once  created  in  every  one  an 
awful  sense  of  the  power  of  the  speaker.  The 
rumor  of  this  startling  incident  ran  like  a  wind- 
fanned  flame.  The  sick  heard  it  in  their  beds, 
and  the  springs  of  life  in  them  burst  forth  with 
a  new  energy.  In  the  house  whither  Jesus, — 
followed  by  a  crowd,  doubtless, — went  from  the 
synagogue,  there  lay  a  woman  sick  with  a  fever. 
Upon  his  entrance  into  the  chamber,  at  his  pres- 
ence, at  the  thrilling  touch  of  his  hand,  she 
threw  off  the  fever,  forgot  her  weakness,  rose  to 
her  feet,  and  instantly  was   able  to  take  active 


JE8UB,    THE    HEART    OF   CHRISTIANITY,         79 

part  in  the  offices  of  hospitality.  At  sundown, 
when  the  Sabbath  was  ended,  crowds  gathered 
round  the  house,  "  the  whole  city,"  the  record 
states.  Among  them  persons  Buffering  under  the 
influence,  as  was  imagined,  of  malignant  spirits, 
were  relieved,  I  can  readily  suppose,  by  the  bare 
sight  of  Jesus. 

Taking  this  account  as  it  stands,  without  allow- 
ing ourselves  to  be  biased  by  preconceived  and 
traditional  representations  of  these  scenes,  we 
cannot  but  perceive  that  these  remarkable  effects 
were  produced  well-nigh  involuntarily  on  the 
part  of  Jesus,  apparently  with  no  consciousness 
of  having  exerted  any  extraordinary  power. 
Amidst  the  storm  of  public  feeling  he  remained 
calm  and  erect.  Its  only  effect  upon  him  was 
to  deprive  him  of  sleep  that  night.  The  next 
morning,  "  a  great  while  before  day,"  he  left  his 
bed  and  sought  seclusion,  to  ponder  the  situation 
and  seek  strength  from  the  Highest.  The  result 
was  that  he  decided  not  to  return  then  to  the 
scene  of  that  unlooked-for  excitement. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that,  as,  after  the  heaven- 
revealing  experience  of  his  first  public  step,  his 
baptismal    self-consecration,  he  was  driven  into 


80         JESUS,    THE    HEART    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

solitude  to  collect  himself,  so  now,  after  his  next 
step,  which  brought  an  experience  almost  as  ex- 
citing, he  was  driven  again,  and  from  his  bed,  to 
seclusion  and  prayer. 

When  lie  returned  in  a  few  hours  from  his 
retirement,  and  similar  scenes  were  repeated,  and 
the  popular  enthusiasm  surged  around  him,  un- 
conscious as  he  was  of  having  caused  it  by  any 
intended  exercise  of  extraordinary  power,  so  far 
from  availing  himself  of  it  to  advance  his  influence 
with  the  people,  his  whole  attention  was  fixed, 
to  the  forgetfulness  of  self,  upon  the  faith  which 
they  put  in  him,  and  which  wrought  these  sud- 
den and  powerful  effects.  Then  it  was,  I  con- 
ceive, that  it  broke  upon  him  as  a  revelation  : 
the  Power  of  Faith.  This  was  what  he  learned 
from  what  he  witnessed.  With  what  emphasis 
did  he  always  afterwards  magnify  faith  !  He 
might  well  do  so,  seeing  what  imposing  demon- 
strations of  it  were  daily  passing  before  his  eyes. 

VIII.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  dwell  upon 
the  influence  which  Jesus  has  had,  that  we  make 
no  account  of  the  influences  which  acted  upon 
him,  or  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  affected 


JESUS,    THE    HEART  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  81 

and  educated  by  his  surroundings.  Indeed,  the 
dogmas  that  have  prevailed  concerning  hia  nature 

and  offices  have  caused  us  to  overlook  the  fact 
that  he  waa  sent  into  being,  as  all  men  are,  to 
live  and  to  learn,  for  his  own  perfection  as  well 
as  for  the  sake  of  others.  To  him,  as  to  every 
soul  of  flesh,  life  was  a  discipline. 

And  when  was  there  ever  one  so  docile  as  he, 
so  quick  to  catch  the  import  of  events  ?  He  read 
off  the  deep  meaning  of  Suffering  at  Bight  and 
got  it  instantly  by  heart.  He  learned  the  ways 
of  the  eternal  Providence  from  the  sunshine  and 
the  rain,  from  a  falling  sparrow  and  a  grain  of 
mustard-seed.  The  lessons  which  the  most  fa- 
miliar incidents  taught  he  understood  as  readily 
as  if  they  were  articulated  in  his  mother-tongue. 
We  call  him  the  great  Teacher.  He  was  the 
greatest  of  teachers,  in  that  lie  was  the  greatest 
of  learners.  He  "learned  Obedience,"  the  im- 
mortal lesson  !  and  was  perfected  by  all  that  he 
saw  and  Buffered,— in  a  word,  by  his  experience. 
And  what  an  experience  was  his ! 

Of  the  first  thirty  years  of  his  life  we  know 
little  or  nothing.  However  secluded  that  pe- 
riod  may  have   been,  however   limited   its  op- 


82         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

portunities,  the  whole  tenor  of  his  subsequent 
career  presupposes  that  it  was  a  period  of  steady, 
spiritual  growth,  of  natural,  unconscious  prepa- 
ration for  the  life  which  he  entered  upon  in 
his  thirtieth  year  or  thereabouts.  That  those 
early  years  were  not  spent  in  any  ascetic  prac- 
tices, away  from  the  concerns  of  common  life, 
in  absorbing  meditation  upon  the  mysteries  of 
life,  is  evident,  first,  from  the  character  of  his 
publjc  teachings,  and,  in  the  next  place,  from 
the  manner  in  which  he  illustrated  them. 

It  was  with  no  vague  abstractions,  no  abstruse 
nor  mystical  speculations,  that  he  dealt,  when 
he  began  to  talk  in  public.  He  had  evidently 
learned  what  a  dead,  putrid,  formality  the  re- 
ligion of  the  time  had  become;  how  the  plain 
commandments  of  God  were  made  of  no  effect 
by  human  traditions;  how  false  to  God  and  to 
man  were  they  who  assumed  to  give  the  law  to 
the  people.  He  read  the  hearts  of  the  dominant 
classes  like  a  book.  It  was  no  new  things  that 
he  professed  to  reveal,  but  truths  written  from 
the  first  in  nature  and  the  human  soul, — truths 
the  most  practical,  and  searchingly  applicable  to 
the  moral  needs  of  the  time.     He  affirmed  the 


JESUS,    THE    HEART    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  83 

violated  law  of  God,  the  two  commandments, — 

the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of  one's  neigh- 
bor,— than  which  lie  declared  there  were  none 
greater.  Seeing  the  ruin  which  the  corruption 
of  the  ruling  classes  and  of  religion  was  work- 
ing,  he  foresaw,  what  was  foreseen  also  by  John, 
who  preceded  him,  and,  doubtless,  more  or  less 
clearly  by  others  also,  the  coming  providence  or 
kingdom  of  God  in  the  downfall  of  the  nation. 
Humble  and  confined  as  were  the  aspects  of  life 
to  him  in  the  first  private  period,  still  he  was 
then  daily  learning  to  know  men  and  things. 
That  his  quick  and  extraordinary  insight,  his 
instinctive  aptitude  in  interpreting  the  signs  of 
the  time  were  due  to  an  exquisitely  organized, 
highly-gifted  nature,  there  is  no  doubt.  Xever- 
theless,  as  there  is  no  sphere  of  life  that  is  not 
disciplinary,  that  he  was  growing  in  those  early 
years  ever  more  and  more  interested  in  the  great 
truths  which  had  his  heart,  ever  stronger  in  faith 
and  in  sympathy  with  his  suffering  fellow-men, 
it  is  only  natural  to  conclude. 

As  the  truths  which  most  interested  him  thus 
indicate  how  his  early  life  was  spent,  so,  like- 
wise, the  manner  in  which  he  was  wont  to  pre- 


84         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

sent  them  shows  how  familiar  he  was  with  Na- 
ture and  with  Life.  He  found  his  illustrations 
in  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  the  birds  of  the 
air,  in  the  wind,  in  the  light,  in  the  seed  cast 
into  the  earth,  in  the  net  thrown  into  the  lake, 
in  the  city  set  on  a  hill,  in  the  candle  lighted  in 
the  house,  in  the  leaven  put  into  the  bread,  in 
the  wine  in  the  wine-skin,  in  the  garments  that 
were  worn,  in  festive  and  bridal  occasions,  and 
in  children  playing  in  the  market  place.  Does 
it  not  all  show  as  plainly  as  if  it  were  recorded 
in  so  many  words  that  he  was  living  during 
those  thirty  unknown  years  in  the  world,  not 
out  of  it,  and  that  by  the  ceaseless  ministry  of 
Nature  and  Life  he  was  being  educated  for  his 
great  career  ? 

At  last  the  inevitable  hour  came  when  he 
could  be  silent  no  longer,  when  he  must  quit 
the  sphere  to  which  he  was  confined,  turn  his 
back  upon  kindred  and  home,  and  go  forth 
and  warn  and  comfort  the  people,  and  deliver 
them  from  their  fatal  delusions  respecting  the 
coming  kingdom,  and  from  the  soul-destroying 
bondage  of  the  letter  under  which  they  were 
crushed. 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         85 

Seeing  clearly  the  sore  need  there  was  of  the 
publication  of  the  truth,  he  could  not  but  have 
foreseen,  long  before  he  publicly  appeared,  that, 
such  was  the  temper  of  the  governing  classes,  it 
would  be  at  a  perilous  cost  to  undertake  this 
work.  He  knew  his  own  purpose.  He  knew  the 
ruling  spirit  of  the  time.  Consequently,  he  must 
resolve  to  meet  that  spirit  in  deadly  collision. 

Suddenly,  travellers,  coming  in  from  the  des- 
ert, brought  report,  startling  the  whole  country, 
of  a  voice  heard  there  crying  aloud  and  warning 
the  people  to  prepare  for  the  Divine  Comma- 
which,  to  those  who  read  the  signs  of  the  time, 
cast  a  shadow  of  darkness  and  wrath  before,  but 
which  the  people  fondly  imagined  was  to  intro- 
duce a  glorious  national  empire.  From  all  parts 
of  Galilee  and  Judea,  and  from  the  distant 
capital,  Jerusalem,  the  people  nocked  to  that 
strange  figure  that  appeared,  like  one  of  the 
great  prophets  of  the  Past,  clad  in  a  garment  of 
camel's  hair,  girt  with  a  leathern  girdle,  and 
subsisting  on  the  produce  of  the  desert,  locusts 
and  wild  honey.  And  he  bathed  the  people  in 
the  Jordan,  the  sacred  river,  in  token  of  inward 
cleansing  and  newness  of  life.     It  was  a  ffreat 


86         JESUS,   THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

religious  revival  which  swept  all  classes  before 
it.  Even  Pharisees  and  Teachers  of  the  Law, 
wrapt  round  and  round  in  spiritual  pride  though 
they  were,  yielded  to  the  popular  stream,  and, 
for  fear  of  risking  their  popularity,  were  found 
in  the  multitudes  that  thronged  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan.  This  state  of  public  feeling  determined 
the  mind  of  Jesus. 

And  now,  when  lie  stands  upon  the  threshold 
of  a  new  life,  is  it  to  be  conceived  that  he  ceases 
to  be  a  learner  ?  If,  in  that  humble  sphere 
where  he  saw  so  little  of  the  world,  he  was  con- 
stantly growing,  gathering  wisdom  in  the  meanest 
places,  how  much  more  must  he  have  learned 
in  that  larger  and  public  sphere  upon  which 
he  now  entered  !  How  new  and  all-searching 
and  all-inspiring  must  his  experience  be  now ! 

To  most  of  those  who  went  to  John,  baptism, 
I  imagine,  was  more  or  less  a  mere  form,  super- 
stitiously  observed.  But  to  Jesus  it  was  a  deed 
of  the  saintliest  heroism,  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era  in  his  life.  It  was  the  first  step,  the  step 
that  costs,  the  "  conversion  of  his  conviction  into 
act/'  by  which  he  bound  hinlself  irrevocably, 
beyond  the  possibilit}7  of  retreat,  to  the  fulfil- 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         87 

ment  of  his  great  purpose.  The  one  thing,  that 
he  must  do  or  die,  could  be  done  only  by  the 
unreserved  surrender  of  himself  to  the  Supreme 
Will  as  that  was  signified  by  the  voice  within. 
He  saw, — he  could  not  help  seeing, — the  danger, 
the  death  that  awaited  him.  It  was,  therefore, 
not  formally,  hut  with  the  whole  force  of  his  will 
in  the  act,  that  he  deliberately,  solemnly,  pub- 
licly, thus  expressed  his  inward  cleansing  from 
all  hesitation  and  weakness. 

And  the  consequence  was  that  there  instantly 
welled  up  within  him  an  ineffable  peace,  unlooked 
for  and  more  profound  than  he  had  ever  before 
experienced,  the  natural  warrant  of  so  pure  an 
act  of  self-renunciation.  It  could  not  otherwise 
be  than  that,  when  the  truth  of  God  filled  all  his 
soul,  there  should  come  with  it  the  peace  of  God 
that  passeth  all  understanding.  Accordingly,  it 
seemed  to  him  as  if  Heaven  itself  was  thrown 
wide  open  to  him,  and  so  raised  was  his  imagina- 
tion that  a  dove,  hovering  within  the  sphere  of 
his  uplifted  vision,  was  transfigured  into  a  sym- 
bol and  messenger  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and 
there  was  borne  in  upon  him,  as  by  a  voice 
speaking,  the  revelation  of   a   relation   between 


88         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

him  and  the  Highest,  which  could  be  repre- 
sented only  by  that  of  a  son  to  a  father.  Thus 
he  had  the  sure  witness  of  the  spirit  within  that 
he  was  a  Son  of  God.  And  so  in  him,  as  in 
no  other,  the  Sonship  of  all  Humanity,  and  con- 
sequently the  Fatherhood  of  the  Highest,  are 
revealed. 

I  have  dwelt  much  and  often  upon  this  passage 
in  the  life  of  Jesus.  And  still  I  want  words  to 
tell  the  sense  of  truth  which  it  creates  in  me. 
Nowhere  in  all  his  history  does  he  seem  more 
real,  more  human,  more  divine,  than  when  com- 
ing up  out  of  the  baptismal  waters. 

The  manner  in  which  I  view  this  scene  is  of 
special  interest  on  this  account :  it  shows  us  how 
he  arrived  at  the  full  consciousness  of  his  inti- 
mate relation  to  the  Highest,  and  that  it  was  no 
abnormal  state  of  mind,  no  hallucination,  the 
product  of  fancied  visions  and  alleged  preter- 
natural communications,#but  was  as  natural  and 
human  as  it  was  divine. 

The  open  heavens,  the  descending  *dove,  the 
voice  from  heaven,  were  not  phenomena  ad- 
dressed to  the  uncertain  bodily  senses,  the  mi- 
raculous causes  of  the  consciousness  produced  in 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         89 

Jesus,  but  they  were  the  effects  of  that  conscious- 
ness, the  forms  of  speed),  the  creations  of  the 
imagination,  suggested  and  necessitated  by  it. 

Deep  feeling  always  craves  expression  in  bold 
figures  of  speech,  and  the  bolder  they  are  the 
more  easilv  may  we  gauge  the  depth  of  feeling 
from  which  they  spring.  How  pure  and  earnest 
must  have  been  the  purpose,  how  ecstatic  the 
peace  attending  this  first  step  towards  its  fulfil- 
ment, when  that  peace  could  be  described  only 
as  the  very  heavens  above  unveiled,  and  the  very 
Spirit  of  the  Highest  descending  in  bodily  shape  ! 

Thus  we  see  that  life  was  to  him  what  it  is  to 
all  men  ;  that  his  spirit,  like  his  body,  grew ;  that 
as  he  passed  from  meditation  to  act,  as  he  pro- 
ceeded to  execute  his  high  aims,  a  new  and  all- 
inspiring  experience  was  his.  A  consciousness 
was  created  in  him  of  oneness  with  the  Greatest 
and  Best,  which  the  boldest  figures  of  the  im- 
agination, and  the  dearest  natural  relations,  were 
all  inadequate  to  represent. 

His  retirement  to  the  desert  after  that  high  act 

of  self-consecration  was  the  natural  consequence 

of  the  change  then  wrought  in  him.     He  could 

not  go  back  to  his  old  home   and  resume   his 
8* 


90         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

accustomed  place  there.  The  former  compara- 
tive repose  of  his  mind  was  gone.  His  instant 
need  was  solitude. 

Of  the  manner  in  which  he  spent  the  time 
passed  in  the  desert  we  have  only  a  brief  sketch. 
Only  a  few  prominent  particulars  are  noted, 
after  the  manner  of  such  simple,  unskilled  writers 
as  the  authors  of  the  Gospel  narratives  evidently 
were.  That  nothing  was  known  of  him  during 
those  forty  days,  that  his  mother  and  kindred  felt 
no  concern  for  him,  are  suppositions  altogether 
improbable.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  they 
knew  where  he  was,  that  they  went  occasionally 
to  see  him,  and  to  carry  food  to  him,  although  he 
ate  so  little  that  it  could  be  said,  speaking  popu- 
larly, as  the  authors  of  the  Gospels  wrote,  that 
he  ate  nothing.  Such  circumstances  were  of  too 
ordinary  a  character  to  be  noticed  by  writers  who 
evidently  thought  only  of  relating  such  incidents 
as  struck  them  as  remarkable.  The  result  of  his 
retirement  was  the  conquest  of  every  temptation 
to  be  false  to  his  great  purpose. 

How  marked  the  difference  between  Jesus  and 
John  the  Baptizer!  The  fervid  temperament  of 
John  could  brook  no  accommodation  to  the  com- 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         91 

mon  ways  of  life.  He  could  find  no  fit  dwelling- 
place  but  in  the  desert,  away  from  his  fellow-men. 
To  Jesus  solitude  was  only  an  occasional  neces- 
sity, to  repair  the  exhaustion  of  his  spirit,  and 
keep  its  high  tone  by  communion  with  the 
Highest.  He  dwelt  in  the  desert  only  for  a  time, 
and  returned  to  Galilee  full  of  spiritual  power. 
When  at  home  again,  he  adopted  no  peculiar 
mode  of  life  in  order  to  gain  public  attention. 
He  waited  for  the  Sabbath,  and  the  synagogue 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  attend. 

Of  the  impression  made  by  his  first  appearance 
as  a  teacher,  and  of  the  effect  upon  himself,  I 
have  already  spoken.  Here  it  is,  at  the  very 
beginning  of  his  public  life,  that  we  have  illus- 
trations of  his  personal  greatness  hardly  less  im- 
pressive than  those  which  mark  the  closing  hours 
of  his  life. 

Young  and  without  any  previous  similar 
experiences,  upon  his  first  appearance  he  was 
greeted  by  the  most  imposing  demonstrations  of 
popular  favor.  Such  startling  incidents  attended 
him  that  he  was  at  once  the  object  of  all  men's 
wonder.  They  crowded  around  him  from  all 
quarters.     The  rumor  of  his  words  and  acts  ran 


92         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

like  wildfire,  losing  nothing,  we  may  be  sure,  of 
the  marvellous  as  it  spread.  At  one  time,  we 
are  told,  there  was  such  a  coming  and  going, 
that  he  and  his  attendants  had  not  time  "  so 
much  as  to  eat."  Again,  the  crowds  were  so 
great  that  they  trampled  one  upon  another.  He 
had  to  keep  a  boat  in  waiting  upon  the  shore 
of  the  Galilean  lake,  where  he  first  appeared, 
that  he  might  escape  when  the  pressure  of  the 
multitude  became  too  great.  And  when  he  made 
use  of  the  boat  to  cross  to  another  part  of  the 
lake,  instantly  the  lake  was  covered  with  boats 
filled  with  people,  determined  not  to  lose  sight  of 
him,  while  he  himself,  so  exhausted  was  he,  fell 
into  a  sleep  so  deep  that  the  uproar  of  a  sudden 
squall  upon  the  lake  could  not  awaken  him. 
The  whole  country  heaved  with  the  sensation  lie 
was  causing.  He  saw  deranged  minds,  through 
the  faith  that  was  put  in  him,  restored  to  sanity, 
and  limbs  withered,  and  swollen  with  leprosy, 
and  sightless  eyes,  recover  their  soundness. 

How  could  it  be  but  that  such  an  extraordinary 
state  of  things  must  have  affected  him  greatly? 
It  did  affect  him  profoundly.  But  with  a  god- 
like insight  into  the  truth,  he  put  no  self-serving 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         93 

construction  upon  it.  It  was  a  revelation  to  him 
of  the  mighty  power  of  Faith.     Divinely  uncon- 

Oil  \l 

scious  of  what  it  was  in  himself  personally  that 
had  all  at  once  inspired  this  boundless  trust  in 
him,  unaware  of  any  peculiar  difference  between 

himself  and  others,  he  appears  never  once  to 
have  thought  of  accrediting  himself  with  these 
sudden  cures,  but  was  filled  with  wonder  at  the 
power  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  him.  This, 
I  reiterate,  this  it  was  that  took  his  eye  as  the 
all-powerful  agency. 

Thus  his  faith  in  Faith  was  deepened  beyond 
measure.  It  penetrated  to  the  inmost  of  his 
being,  and  awoke  there  a  sense  of  power  which 
only  such  a  person,  with  such  an  experience, 
could  have.  And  it  was,  I  sacredly  believe,  in 
the  unrivalled  energy  of  his  own  faith,  quick- 
ened into  all-conquering  activity  by  his  extraor- 
dinary experience  that  he  called  Lazarus  from 
the  grave  and  awoke  himself  from  the  deep 
slumber. 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  appreciate  the  great- 
ness of  mind  which  illumines  the  last  hours  of 
his  career,  and  which  has  changed  the  vile  cross 
into  the  world's  most  sacred  symbol.     But,  in 


94         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

truth,  the  very  beginning  of  his  public  life,  when, 
in  his  youth  and  inexperience,  he  was  hailed  with 
the  acclamations  of  the  people,  manifests  no  less 
impressively  the  same  imperial  character.  He 
was  alike  unmoved  by  the  horrors  of  a  lonely 
and  violent  death  and  by  the  blandishments  of 
the  most  enthusiastic  popular  favor.  When  the 
admiring  wonder  of  a  great  multitude  is  concen- 
trated upon  him,  he  shows  no  consciousness  of 
the  ordeal  to  which  he  is  subjected.  The  shouts 
of  the  people  make  no  more  impression  upon 
him  than  if  he  heard  them  not.  He  is  as  deaf  to 
those  seducing  voices  from  the  very  first  as  he  is 
to  the  imprecations  of  his  priestly  persecutors  at 
the  last.  In  fine,  he  is  always,  under  the  most 
trying  circumstances,  so  perfectly  self-possessed, 
so  wholly  himself,  that  we  fail  now  to  be  struck 
by  a  greatness  of  mind  as  uniformly  and  as  natu- 
rally sustained  as  if  it  were  the  merest  matter  of 
course,  and  nothing  else  were  possible.  We  are 
insensible  to  it  even  as  he  himself  was  uncon- 
scious of  it.  Not  until  we  recollect  his  tempta- 
tions in  the  wilderness  at  the  first,  and  his  agony 
in  the  garden  at  the  last,  are  we  made  to  feel 
how  great  he  was  in  the  early  period  as  well  as 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         95 

in  the  later,  and  how  entirely  his  greatness  in 
both  was  due  to  no  phlegmatic  insensibility,  but 
to  a  nature  as  tender  as  it  was  strong. 

The  truth  which  I  emphasize  is,  that  the 
strength,  the  wisdom,  the  spiritual  elevation, 
that  distinguished  him,  he  gathered  through  the 
ministry  of  life.  His  verbal  teachings  are  of  the 
loftiest  excellence.  But,  taken  apart  from  him, 
they  have  no  more  weight  than  the  wise  sayings 
of  any  other  of  the  great  teachers  of  mankind. 
As  to  their  practical  influence,  separate  from 
him,  they  might  as  well  have  come  down  to  us 
anonymously. 

But  when  we  view  him,  as  we  have  now  been 
doing,  as  a  man  living  to  learn,  tried  and  edu- 
cated as  all  men  are,  then  we  perceive  that  his 
utterances  were  no  hearsays  of  tradition,  no 
commonplaces  of  custom  and  authority,  but  the 
ejaculations  of  his  own  life.  He  spake  what  he 
knew  from  his  own  experience,  what  he  himself 
felt  profoundly.  His  words  come  weighted  with 
a  quite  peculiar  personal  power.  They  effervesce 
with  his  own  life.  He  thus  communicates  himself 
to  us.  There  is  a  deep  significance  in  the  Apos- 
tolic phrases,  Christ  in  us,  Christ  formed  within  us. 


96         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

It  was  recently  remarked  in  a  distinguished 
periodical  that  the  life  of  Jesus  was  uneventful. 
What  did  the  writer  mean  ?  The  Life  of  Jesus, 
an  event  second  to  none  in  all  history,  whether 
we  consider  what  has  come  of  it  or  what  it  was 
in  itself,  uneventful !  Was  that  high  act  of 
self-consecration,  with  which  the  public  period 
of  that  life  began,  and  from  which  pours  a  flood 
of  light  upon  the  identity  of  the  human  and  the 
divine, — was  that  not  an  event  ?  Or  that  other 
baptism  of  blood,  a  like  revelation, — was  that  no 
event?  Was  not  the  triumph  of  that  young  man 
over  the  adoring  homage  of  multitudes  on  the 
one  hand,  and  over  bigotry  and  hate,  armed 
with  all  the  sanctities  of  the  Church  and  all  the 
powers  of  the  State  on  the  other, — were  not 
these,  events  ?  Was  not  his  every  step,  his  every 
word,  eventful?  The  truth  is,  what  with  the 
superstition  and  the  scepticism  which  paralyze, 
the  one  the  imagination  and  the  other  the 
common  intelligence  of  men,  it  seems  as  if  these 
wonderful  records  might  as  well  never  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  Letter  is  dead.  Is  it  a 
waste  of  time  and  labor  to  endeavor  to  bring  it 
back  to  life  ?     Must  we  give  up  the  dear  hope  of 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         97 

the  world's  being  blest  by  beholding  actualized 
in  Jesus  the  divine  possibilities  that  may  be  real- 
ized in  all  men  ?  "  There  is  something  in  the 
character  of  Christ,"  says  an  English  writer,* 
"  more  likely  to  work  a  change  in  the  mind  of  man  by 
the  contemplation  of  its  idea  alone,  than  any  to  be 
found  in  history,  whether  real  or  feigned,  a 
sublime  humanity  such  as  was  never  seen  on 
earth  before  nor  since."  Are  we  never  to  have 
a  clear  vision  of  this  all-saving  charm  ? 

To  quote  the  wisdom  of  other  great  teachers 
to  prove  that  Jesus  was  not  original  is  altogether 
aside  from  the  true  idea  of  him.  Wise  as  are 
his  words,  and  wonderful  as  were  the  effects  he 
produced,  it  is  not  what  he  said  or  did,  but  what 
he  was,  I  repeat,  that  distinguishes  him  from  all 
others,  and  which  has  wrought  with  such  telling 
power.  Herein  he  stands  above  comparison 
among  all  born  of  woman.  George  Eliot  some- 
where contrasts  in  happy  phrase  "  the  assiduous 
restlessness  of  doing  with  the  serene  dignity  of 
being."  To  Jesus  are  we  indebted  for  a  new 
sense  of  the  power  of  being.     He  had  no  scheme 


*  Hazlitt,  Dramatic  Literature. 
9 


98         JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

to  carry  out,  no  creed  to  be  argued,  no  church  to 
organize,  no  collections  of  money  to  make,  no 
machinery  to  set  in  motion.  He  lived  a  divinely 
human  life,  saying  and  doing  the  best  the  hour 
called  for  as  naturally  as  he  breathed,  turning  all 
occasions,  even  the  most  common,  the  most  sud- 
den, the  most  adverse,  into  opportunities  so  fit- 
ting that  it  seems  now  as  if  all  Nature  and  all  Life 
reverently  waited  upon  him  at  every  step.  His 
words  were  but  imperfectly  understood,  cast 
abroad  upon  no  welcoming  soil.  His  acts  the 
saints  of  the  day  ascribed  to  the  Devil.  Never- 
theless, through  his  whole  being  there  breathed 
a  mighty  life  as  constantly  and  unconsciously  as 
the  breath  of  his  lungs.  As  unconsciously,  both 
on  his  part  and  theirs,  was  it  communicated  to 
those  who  were  within  his  personal  sphere ;  and 
then  by  the  silent,  unacknowledged  method  of 
nature,  as  swells  the  seed,  man  knows  not  how, 
they  grew  up  out  of  the  darkness,  in  which  they 
were  sunk,  up  into  the  immortal  air  and  bound- 
less sunshine  of  a  new  world,  a  world  one  with 
his.  Through  them,  by  the  same  divine  method, 
his  spirit  was  conducted  through  an  ever-broad- 
ening  circle.     So   the  kingdom  of  God   came. 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.         99 

So  a  Religion  sprang  from  him,  which  is  neither 
a  creed  nor  a  form,  but  a  spirit,  a  spirit,  not  of 
fear,  nor  of  bondage,  but  of  "love  and  power 
and  a  sound  mind,"  a  spirit,  in  which  all  may 
share,  be  they  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Trinitarian 
or  Unitarian,  Free  Religionist,  Jew,  Hindoo, 
Parsee,  or  Mahometan. 

If  there  ever  existed  a  man  who  passed  in  his 
day  for  the  rankest  of  Radicals,  it  was  Jesus,  the 
Nazarene.  And  yet  for  what  ultra  Conservatism 
has  his  authority  been  claimed  now  for  centuries  ! 
That  such  an  institution  as  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  with  its  Hierarchies,  Ceremonials,  and 
Inquisitions  should  have  followed  upon  his  life, 
is  one  of  the  most  amazing  facts  in  the  history 
of  mankind.  It  only  proves  the  omnipotence  of 
Character  :  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  Jesus  set 
the  mind  of  the  world  aflame.  He  kindled  on 
the  earth  a  fire,  through  the  smoke  whereof  his 
figure  looms,  huge,  formless,  and  men,  prostrate 
before  it,  have  lost  their  reason  in  the  consuming 
heat  of  the  imagination. 

IX.  Apart  from  its  religious  interest,  the  his- 
tory of  Jesus  has  a  scientific  interest ;  a  special 


100      JESUS,   THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

interest  at  this  hour,  when  theories  of  the  Uni- 
verse are  suggested  by  leading  men  of  science  that 
seem  at  least  to  threaten  death  to  the  religious 
sentiment ;  when  men  are  losing  faith  in  a  living 
God,  and  even  in  their  own  existence,  conscious- 
ness being  defined  to  be  a  fleeting  accident,  a  tem- 
porary "  reflex  action"  in  the  ceaseless  changes 
of  matter,  which  alone  is  held  to  be  immortal. 

Now,  if  there  has  existed  such  a  person  as  I 
believe  Jesus  to  have  been,  it  is  a  fact  which  we 
shall  do  well  to  weigh  before  we  resign  ourselves 
to  these  tendencies  of  modern  thought.  If,  be- 
sides uttering  the  divinest  wisdom  and  living  a 
life  of  stainless  purity,  and  suffering  with  regal 
dignity  a  martyr's  death,  he,  by  a  brief  word  of 
his  lips,  by  the  touch  of  his  hand,  restored  health 
to  the  sick  and  sight  to  the  blind,  if  he  broke 
the  mysterious  sleep  of  the  grave,  and  reappeared 
himself  alive  after  death,  and  if  all  this  was,  as  I 
conceive,  not  in  violation  of  the  natural  order  of 
things,  but  in  entire  conformity  thereto  and  illus- 
trative thereof,  then  is  he  a  Fact  in  Nature,  and 
any  theory  of  Being  is  radically  defective  that 
gives  no  heed  to  the  significance  of  so  extraordi- 
nary a  phenomenon. 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.       101 

So  long  as  it  is  held  to  be  essential  to  our 
Christian  Faith  to  conceive  of  him  as  out  of  the 
order  of  nature,  he  is  out  of  the  sphere  of  natu- 
ral science  and  philosophy.  There  is  no  place 
for  him  there.  But  should  it  appear  that,  peer- 
less and  original  as  he  was  in  his  whole  being 
and  working,  he  was,  in  all  respects,  entirely 
natural,  then  is  he  a  Fact,  not  only  not  to  be 
ignored  in  any  attempt  to  construct  a  theory 
of  Nature  and  of  man's  position  therein,  but,  of 
all  facts,  claiming  the  first  consideration  as  a 
pre-eminent  illustration  of  the  deepest  laws  of 
nature.  Whatever  else  the  forces  of  matter 
may  explain,  they  do  not  explain  him.  lie  is 
an  original  demonstration  of  the  power  that  we 
name  Spirit,  distinct  and  apart  from  the  forces 
proper  to  matter,  native  to  him  as  a  human 
being,  and  consequently,  native,  though  latent, 
to  all  of  human  kind.  It  is,  in  a  word,  the 
Divine  in  man,  the  inspiration,  the  life,  of  the 
Living  God. 

The  Idea  of  Jesus,  which  his  history,  as  I  read 

it,  gives  me,  obviates  the  materialistic  tendency 

of  the  time,  and  is  in  direct  antagonism  thereto. 

I  honor  our  great  men  of  Science,  but  when  their 
9* 


102      JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

speculations  tend  to  the  annihilation  of  God  and 
man,  I  turn,  for  faith  in  both,  to  one  greater 
than  they, — to  one  in  whom  there  is  disclosed  a 
foundation  for  that  faith  at  once  objective  and 
subjective.  In  Jesus  we  have  an  Ideal  and  a 
natural  Fact.  To  a  healthy  and  complete  faith, 
the  one  is  as  necessary  as  the  other.  From  the 
Gospels  we  obtain  a  flesh-and-blood  representa- 
tion of  what  he  was.  In  what  he  was  we  have  a 
vision  of  his  ideal  and  undying  life, — and  ours. 

Many,  who  put  but  little  faith  in  the  record, 
yet  speak  of  him  in  very  exalted  terms.  Where 
they  obtain  any  idea  of  his  person  it  is  hard  to 
discover,  seeing  that  they  reject  as  fabulous 
nearly  all  that  is  told  of  him.  Surely  it  must 
make  the  greatest  difference  in  our  idea  of  him 
whether  such  passages  of  his  history  as  those, 
for  example,  that  narrate  the  Raising  of  Laza- 
rus and  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  himself  be 
received  as  true  or  dismissed  as  fables.  These 
events  and  most  of  the  alleged  so-called  miracles 
being  accepted  as  natural  facts,  there  results  an 
Idea  of  Jesus  incomparably  more  powerful  than 
the  dim,  impersonal  glimpse  of  him  caught  from 
the  meagre  materials  which  are  all  that  the  seep- 


JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY.      103 

tically  inclined  admit.  Upon  our  conception  of 
him,  the  Representative  not  of  one  age  or  race, 
but  of  all  mankind,  depends,  of  course,  our  con- 
ception of  man  universally.  Those  extraordi- 
nary particulars  of  his  history,  in  throwing  light 
upon  man  and  upon  man's  position  in  Nature, 
throw  light  also  upon  all  Nature.  It  is  in  vain, 
therefore,  that  we  think  to  separate  Religion  and 
Science  and  keep  them  each  to  a  domain  of  its 
own.  Their  intimacy  is  involved  in  the  intimacy 
of  matter  and  mind,  in  the  unity  of  Nature  vis- 
ible and  invisible.  The  Idea  of  Jesus  is  the 
corner-stone  of  sound  philosophy  as  well  as  of 
pure  religion. 

What  a  mighty  revolution  is  that  which  began 
with  him  upon  whose  claims  we  have  now  been 
dwelling,  a  revolution  still  proceeding  upon  an 
ever-enlarging  scale,  novel  and  extraordinary  in 
the  grandeur  of  its  aim,  in  the  simplicity  of  its 
method  !  It  came  forth  from  the  solitary  heart  of 
one  man,  and  though  clouds  and  darkness  have 
gathered  around  it,  it  has  advanced  as  the  day  ad- 
vances, or  the  Spring  time.  Systems  of  theology, 
huge  organizations  including  ages  and  nations, 


104      JESUS,    THE    HEART   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

have  sprung  out  of  it,  but  it  could  not  be  shut 
up  in  any  of  these.  Being  in  accord  with  "the 
human  soul  of  universal  earth,"  it  steals  away 
from  them  like  the  light  and  the  air,  and  ap- 
pears again  in  quarters  far  outside  of  them,  in 
some  despised  Nazareth,  perhaps.  The  person 
of  him  who  is  the  soul  of  it,  inspiring  faith, 
veneration,  love,  appeals  to  all  men,  and  steadily, 
by  re-creating  the  individual,  effects  great  social 
reformations. 

Finally,  one  thing  is  plain,  simply  this  :  The 
more  vividly  we  reproduce  the  particulars  that 
illustrate  the  God-like  qualities  of  Jesus,  the 
sooner  he  is  seen  to  be  as  he  was,  a  tried,  suffer- 
ing?, all-conquering  man,  the  more  powerful  will 
be  his  personal  influence,  the  more  fully  will  his 
spirit  be  breathed  into  the  private  heart,  the 
more  rapidly  will  the  great  revolution  proceed, 
the  new  Creation,  over  which,  harmonizing  as  it 
does  with  the  divine  order  of  the  world,  the 
morning  stars  sing  together  and  all  the  sons 
of  God  shout  for  joy. 


HYMNS 


Invocation. 

What  is  the  world  that  it  should  share 
Hearts  that  belong  to  God  alone? 

What  are  the  idols  reigning  there, 
Compared  with  Thee,  Eternal  One  ? 

Fountain  of  living  waters!    We 

To  earthly  springs  would  stoop  no  more. 

A  thirst,  Ave  humbly  turn  to  Thee, 
Into  our  hearts  Thy  Spirit  pour  : 

The  Spirit  of  Thy  boundless  love, 

The  Spirit  of  Thy  truth  and  peaee, 
Conic,  blessed  Spirit,  from  above, 
And  every  earth-bound  soul  release. 
1822. 

107 


108  HYMNS. 

Jesus,  Our  Leader. 

Feeble,  helpless,  how  shall  I 
Learn  to  live  and  learn  to  die  ? 
Who,  0  God,  my  guide  shall  be? 
Who  shall  lead  Thy  child  to  Thee? 

Heavenly  Father,  gracious  One, 
Thou  hast  sent  Thy  blessed  Son  ; 
He  will  give  the  light  I  need, 
He  my  trembling  steps  will  lead. 

Through  this  world,  uncertain,  dim, 
Let  me  ever  learn  of  him ; 
From  his  precepts  wisdom  draw. 
Make  his  life  my  solemn  law. 

Thus,  in  deed,  and  thought,  and  word, 
Led  by  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord, 
In  my  weakness,  thus  shall  I 
Learn  to  live  and  learn  to  die: 

Learn  to  live  in  peace  and  love, 
Like  the  perfect  ones  above. 
Learn  to  die  without  a  fear, 
Knowing  Thee,  my  Father,  near. 
1828. 


HYMNS.  109 


The  Want  Within. 

I  feel  within  a  want 

Forever  stirring  there ; 
What  I  so  thirst  for,  grant, 

0  Thou  who  nearest  prayer ! 

This  is  the  thing  I  crave, 
A  likeness  to  Thy  Son ; 

This  would  I  rather  have 

Than  call  the  world  my  own. 

Like  him,  now  in  my  youth, 

1  long,  0  God,  to  be, 
In  tenderness  and  truth, 

In  deep  humility. 

'Tis  my  most  fervent  prayer, 
Be  it  more  fervent  still, 

Be  it  my  highest  care, 
Be  it  my  settled  will. 
1822. 

10 


110  HYMNS. 


Communion. 

Oh  for  a  prophet's  fire ! 

Oh  for  an  angel's  tongue, 
To  speak  the  tender  love  of  him 

Who  on  the  Cross  was  hung. 

In  vain  do  we  attempt, 

In  language  meet,  to  tell 
How  through  a  thousand  sorrows  burned 

That  flame  unquenchable. 

Yet  would  we  praise  that  love, 

Beyond  expression  dear. 
Come,  gather  round  this  table,  then, 

And  commune  with  it  here. 

These  symbols  of  his  death, 

Oh  with  what  power  they  speak  ! 

Prophetic  lips  and  angels'  lyres, 
Compared  with  these,  how  weak ! 


1845. 


HYMNS.  Ill 


Rom.  viii.  38. 

Yes,  that  our  souls  might  live, 

Those  sacred  limbs  were  torn. 
That  blood  was  shed  and  pangs  untold 

Were  by  the  Saviour  borne. 

O  Thou  who  didst  allow 

Thy  Son  to  suffer  thus. 
Father,  what  more  couldst  Thou  have  done 

Than  Thou  hast  done  for  us? 

"We  are  persuaded  now 

That  nothing  can  divide 
Thy  children  from  the  boundless  love 

Revealed  in  him  who  died  ; 

Who  died  to  make  us  sure 

Of  mercy,  truth,  and  peace. 
And  from  the  power  and  pains  of  sin 

To  bring  a  full  release. 


1845. 


112  HYMNS, 


The  Soul. 


What  is  this  that  stirs  within, 
Loving  goodness,  hating  sin, 
Always  craving  to  be  blest, 
Finding  here  below  no  rest  ? 

Naught  that  charms  the  ear  or  eye 
Can  its  hunger  satisfy  ; 
Active,  restless,  it  would  pierce 
Through  the  outward  universe. 

What  is  it?  and  whither?  whence? 
This  unsleeping,  secret  sense, 
Longing  for  its  rest  and  food 
In  some  hidden,  untried  good  ? 

'Tis  the  soul !     Mysterious  name  ! 
Him  it  seeks  from  whom  it 'came; 
It  would,  Mighty  God,  like  Thee, 
Holy,  holy,  holy  be ! 
1840. 


HYMNS.  113 


1  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks^  so  panteth 
my  soul  after  Thee" 

As  for  the  water-brooks 

The  hart  expiring  pants. 
So  for  my  God  my  spirit  looks, 

Yea,  for  His  presence  faints. 

I  know  thy  joys,  O  Earth, 

The  sweetness  of  thy  cup ; 
Oft  have  I  mingled  in  thy  mirth, 

And  trusted  in  thy  hope. 

But  ah  !  how  woes  and  fears 

Those  hollow  joys  succeed  ! 
That  cup  of  mirth  is  mixed  with  tears. 

That  hope  is  but  a  reed. 

What  have  I  then  below. 

Or  what  but  Thee  on  high  ? 
Thee,  Thee,  0  Father,  would  I  know, 

And  in  Thee  live  and  die  ! 
1840. 


10* 


114  HYMNS. 

Penitential. 

Kichly,  oh,  richly  have  I  been 
Blest,  gracious  God,  by  Thee ; 

And  morning,  noon,  and  night,  Thou  hast 
Preserved  me  tenderly. 

Why  shouldst  Thou  thus  take  care  of  me, 

A  weak  and  sinful  man, 
Who  have  refused  to  render  Thee 

The  little  that  I  can? 

The  love  that  Thou  alone  canst  claim 

To  idols  I  have  given  ; 
And  I  have  bound  to  earth  the  hopes 

That  know  no  home  but  heaven. 

Unworthy  to  be  called  Thy  son, 
I  come  with  shame  to  Thee ; 

Father,  O  more  than  Father,  Thou 
Hast  always  been  to  me. 

Forever  blessed  be  Thy  name, 
For  all  that  Thou  hast  done ! 

That  Thou  wilt  pardon  me,  I  know 
Through  Jesus  Christ,  Thy  Sou. 


HYMNS.  115 

Help  me  to  break  the  heavy  chains 
The  world  has  round  me  thrown. 

And  know  the  glorious  liberty 
Of  an  obedient  son. 

That  I  may  henceforth  heed  whate'er 

Thy  voice  within  me  saitb, 
Fix  deeply  in  my  heart  of  hearts 

The  mighty  power  of  Faith. 

Faith  that,  like  armor  to  my  soul. 

Shall  keep  all  evil  out, 
More  mighty  than  an  angel  host 

Encamped  round  about. 
1823. 


Dedication. 


To  the  High  and  Holy  One, 

To  His  Spirit,  to  His  Son, 

Be  this  place  forever  given, 

House  of  God  and  Gate  of  Heaven. 

To  the  Truth  that  makes  us  free, 
To  the  Love  that  leads  to  Thee, 


116  HYMNS. 

We  this  temple  dedicate 

And  Thy  blessing,  Lord,  await. 

Canst  Thou  be  approached  by  men  ? 
Angels  and  archangels,  when 
God  His  glory  on  them  sheds, 
Veil  their  faces,  bow  their  heads. 

Yet,  Eternal  One,  Thou  art 
Present  in  the  humblest  heart, 
There- dost  Thou  delight  to  reign 
Whom  the  Heavens  cannot  contain. 

Be  our  hearts  the  temple,  where, 
Witnesses  that  Thou  art  here, 
Come  like  angels  from  above, 
Holy  Truth,  and  Faith,  and  Love. 

These  shall  decorate  this  place 
With  a  more  than  mortal  grace, 
Eadiant  thus  with  light  divine, 
Be  this  house  forever  Thine! 
1840. 


HYMNS.  117 


Ordination. 

Thou  only  Living,  only  True. 

Far,  far  away,  and  yet  bow  near ! 
Life  of  our  life  to  will  and  do, 

AVe  thirst  to  have  Thy  witness  here. 

Baptize  our  brother  in  Thy  love, 
Unveil  Thy  heaven  to  his  eye, 

Spread  Thy  wings  o'er  him  like  the  dove. 
And  his  whole  being  sanctify. 

Then  in  Thy  glorious  liberty, 

A  well-beloved  son  of  thine, 
The  tidings  of  Thy  Truth  shall  he 

With  power  declare  and  love  divine. 

Sorrows,  temptations,  he  must  meet, 

The  gloomy  wilderness  pass  through, 
Thine  angels  then  uphold  his  feet, 

And  keep  him  pure,  and  strong,  and  true. 
1868. 


118  HYMNS. 


Mark  x.  16. 

Blessings  on  thee,  gracious  Lord, 
Every  child  shall  bless  thy  name 

For  thy  gentle  smile  and  word 
When  to  thee  the  children  came. 

Happy  child  !  upon  whose  head, 
As  he  sate  upon  thy  knee, 

Thy  kind  hand  was  softly  laid, 
Blessing  him,  how  tenderly ! 

Hark !  that  voice  is  raised  in  prayer, 
That  could  hush  the  maniac  wild, 

Lo !  that  mighty  hand  is  there. 
Laid  in  blessing  on  a  child ! 

Blessings  on  thee,  gracious  Lord, 
Every  child  shall  bless  thy  name 

For  thy  gentle  smile  and  word 
When  to  thee  the  children  came. 
1830. 


HYMNS.  119 


Morning. 

In  the  morning  I  will  raise 
To  my  God  the  voice  of  praise ; 
AVith  His  kind  protection  blest. 
Sweet  and  deep  has  been  my  rest. 

In  the  morning  I  will  pray 
For  His  blessing  on  the  day ; 
What  this  day  shall  be  my  lot. 
Light  or  darkness,  know  I  not. 

Should  it  be  with  clouds  o'ercast, 
Clouds  of  sorrow  gathering  fast, 
Thou,  who  givest  light  divine, 
Shine  within  me,  Lord,  oh.  shine! 

Show  me,  if  I  tempted  be, 
How  to  find  all  strength  in  Thee, 
And  a  perfect  triumph  win 
Over  every  bosom  sin. 


120  HYMNS. 

Keep  my  feet  from  secret  snares, 
Keep  my  eyes,  O  God,  from  tears, 
Every  step  Thy  grace  attend, 
And  my  soul  from  death  defend ! 

Then  when  fall  the  shades  of  night, 
All  within  shall  still  be  light ; 
Thou  wilt  peace  around  diffuse 
Gently  as  the  evening  dews. 
1840. 


Evening. 

Slowly  by  Thy  hand  unfurled, 
Down  around  the  weary  world 
Falls  the  darkness.     Oh,  how  still 
Is  the  working  of  Thy  will ! 

Mighty  Maker !  ever  nigh  ! 
Work  in  me  as  silently ; 
Veil  the  day's  distracting  sights, 
Show  me  heaven's  eternal  lights. 

From  the  darkened  sky  come  forth 
Countless  stars,  a  wondrous  birth  ! 
So  may  gleams  of  glory  dart 
From  this  dim  abyss,  my  heart. 


HYMNS.  121 

Living  worlds  to  view  be  brought 
In  the  boundless  realms  of  thought ; 
High  and  infinite  desires, 
Flaming  like  those  upper  fires. 

Holy  Truth.  Eternal  Right, 
Let  them  break  upon  my  sight ; 
Let  them  shine,  serene  and  still, 
And  with  light  my  being  fill. 

Thou,  who  dwellest  there,  I  know, 
Dwellest  here  within  me.  too; 
May  the  perfect  love  of  God, 
Here,  as  there,  be  shed  abroad. 

Let  my  soul  attuned  be 
To  the  heavenly  harmony, 
Which,  beyond  the  power  of  sound. 
Fills  the  Universe  around. 
1840. 


11 


122  HYMNS. 


1  John  iv.  16. 

Oh,  how  far  are  we  below  Him ! 

Him  no  thought  of  ours  can  reach, 
Never,  never  can  we  know  Him, 

Far  beyond  all  sight,  all  speech. 

Yet  the  secret  of  His  presence 
Is  with  those  who  dwell  in  love : 

They,  embosomed  in  His  essence. 
In  Him  ever  live  and  move. 

Thus  in  Him  to  have  our  being, 
Choosing  love  for  our  abode, 

More  than  knowing  Him  or  seeing 
Is  it  thus  to  dwell  in  God. 

1874. 


HYMNS.  123 


1878. 


Matthew  vi.  22,  23. 

Let  thine  eye  be  single, 

And  no  earth-born  visions  mingle 

With  thy  pure  Ideal. 
Then  will  its  undimmed  light 
]\fake  all  within  thee  bright. 

And  all  around  thee  real. 

But  if  thine  eye  be  double, 
Black  care  will  rise  to  trouble 

And  veil  that  light. 
Then  blindly  wilt  thou  grope, 
Cheated  of  faith  and  hope 

By  phantoms  of  the  night. 


1 24  HYMNS. 


Seeing  the  Unseen. 

Thou  who  dost  all  things  give, 

Be  not  Thyself  forgot ! 
JSTo  longer  may  Thy  children  live 

As  if  their  God  were  not ! 

But  every  day  and  hour, 

Since  Thou  dost  bless  us  thus, 

In  still  increasing  light  and  power, 
Reveal  Thyself  to  us ; 

Until  our  faith  shall  be 

Stronger  than  words  can  tell, 

And  we  shall  live  beholding  Thee, 

O  Thou  Invisible ! 
1860. 


HYMNS.  125 


Funeral  Hymn. 

How  frail  arc  all  our  mortal  ties! 

In  vain  heart  fondly  clings  to  heart. 
Borne  onward  by  the  rushing  tide. 
Friends,  who  are  standing  side  by  side. 

Are  swiftly,  rudely  swept  apart. 
And  so  our  life  is  full  of  fears. 
And  so  our  eyes  are  dim  with  tears. 

Ah !  blest  are  those  in  God  who  sleep  ! 

As  flowers  we  flourish  and  we  fade. 

The  wind,  it  blows  and  we  are  gone  ; 
Mute  farewells  we  exchange  and  then 
No  more  are  we  beheld  of  men. 

We  vanish  in  the  grave,  alone. 
But  God  still  lives,  and  in  His  arms 
No  mortal  fear  the  soul  alarms. 

Ah  !  blest  are  those  in  Him  who  sleep. 
1881. 


11* 


126  HYMXS. 


Invocation. 

Holy  Father! 

Gracious  art  Thou ! 

Hear  us,  hear  us, 

When  before  Thy  throne  we  bow, 

Hal  low' d  be  Thy  name  forever  ! 

Let  no  thought  unholy,  rude, 

On  this  sacred  hour  intrude. 

May  Thy  Spirit, 

Like  a  dove,  from  heaven  descending, 

Dwell  within, 

All  its  grace  and  beauty  lending, 

Free  from  every  stain  of  sin. 

Adapted  to  the  quartette  :  Holder  Friede,  etc.,  in  Romberg's 
music  for  Schiller's  "  Song  of  the  Bell." 
1849. 


HYMNS.  127 


Supplication. 

Ah!  this  life  is  full  of  danger. 
Ah!  how  narrow  is  the  pathway; 
Lord,  our  prayer  to  Thee  ascending 
Seeks  Thy  grace,  our  souls  defending. 
All  our  way  to  guard  and  guide. 
May  we  ever  more  abide 
'Xeath  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings. 
And  in  all  our  wanderings, 
Father,  may  Thy  love  attend  us, 
Be  with  us  forevermore. 
In  temptation's  hour  befriend  us, 
On  our  hearts  Thy  Spirit  pour. 
For  without  Thy  mercy  o'er  us 
We  no  strength.  O  God,  can  boast. 
All  our  joy  must  turn  to  sorrow, 
All  our  hope,  our  heaven,  be  lost. 

The  contralto  solo:  Ach !  die  Gattin  ist's)  etc.,  in  the  same 
piece  of  music. 
1849. 


128  HYMNS. 


Supplication. 

Have  mercy,  O  Father, 

To  Thee  do  we  cry, 
Faint,  weary,  and  wayworn, 

To  Thy  wings  we  fly, 
Speak  peace  to  our  souls, 
Without  Thee  we  die. 

We  wander  in  darkness, 
Oh,  grant  us  Thy  light ! 

We  stray  from  the  pathway, 
Lost,  lost  in  the  night, 

Oh,  be  Thou  our  guide, 
And  lead  us  aright. 


1849. 


HYMNS.  129 


The  Peace  of  God. 

AVe  would  rise.  O  God,  to  Thee, 
Earnest,  contrite,  lowly. 
Thou.  Thou  alone,  art  holy, 

How  poor,  how  weak,  are  we ! 
We  come  Thy  Peace  imploring, 
The  Peace  to  angels  given, 
The  Peace  that  fills  all  heaven. 

In  us.  oh,  may  it  be! 

Through  the  Universe  around, 
Like  a  plenteous  river, 
Forever  and  forever. 

It  flows  without  a  bound. 

Oh,  come.  Thou  blessed  Spirit, 
Into  our  souls  descending, 
And  every  step  attending, 

Our  way  with  Peace  surround ! 
1849. 


130  HYMNS. 


On  the  Death  of  R.  T.  F.,  at  the  Age  of  Fourteen. 

That  voice  like  music  sounding, 
We  hear  that  voice  no  more, 

That  form  in  grace  abounding 
Time  never  will  restore. 

Those  eyes  so  bright  with  feeling. 

Suffused  with  tenderness, 
In  every  look  revealing 

A  spirit  come  to  bless, — 

Their  light  is  quenched,  and  on  us 
They  never  more  will  beam  ; 

The  star  that  rose  upon  us, 
How  transient  was  its  gleam ! 

That  one  so  rich  in  promise, 

So  lovely  and  so  pure, 
Should  thus  be  taken  from  us 

Oh,  how  shall  we  endure ! 

She  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth, 
Why  in  your  hearts  this  strife  ? 

He  who  hath  kept,  still  keepeth 
The  never-d}ring  life. 


HYMNS.  131 

And  though  that  form  must  moulder 

And  mix  again  with  earth, 
In  faith  you  may  behold  her 

In  glory  going  forth. 

For  what  to  us  seems  dying 

Is  but  another  birth, 
A  spirit  upward  flying 

From  the  broken  shell  of  earth. 

We  are  the  dead,  the  buried, 

We  who  do  yet  survive. 
In  the  grave  of  sense  interred, — 

The  dead, — they  are  alive  ! 

A  world  of  shadows  leaving. 

Up  to  the  Fount  of  Light, 
Death's  cloud  with  strong  wing  cleaving 

They  take  triumphant  flight. 

Why  weep  ye  then,  heart-broken. 

When  one  so  pure  has  gone? 
It  is  from  Heaven  a  token, 
An  angel  there  is  born. 
1834. 


132  HYMNS. 


[Sung  at  the  Opening  of  "  The  Pennsylvania  Institution  for 
the  Blind"  (1833),  an  Institution  owing  its  origin  to  mem- 
bers of  the  First  Unitarian  Church  :  John  Vaughan,  and 
Jacob  Snider,  Jr.,  and  liberally  endowed  by  my  friend 
and  parishioner,  William  Y.  Birch.] 

O  Thou  great  and  gracious  Being, 

To  all  creatures  ever  kind, 
Source  of  vision  to  the  seeing, 

Friend  and  Father,  of  the  blind. 

Joys  of  sight, — the}7  are  denied  us, — 

Let  Thy  holy  Will  be  done ! 
In  the  darkness  Thou  dost  guide  us, 

Thou,  O  God,  our  Light,  our  Sun ! 

Through  the  sounds  that  fall  and  linger 

On  the  eager,  listening  ear, 
Through  the  quick-discerning  finger 

Bidding  darkness  disappear, 

Through  the  friends  whom  Thou  hast  given. 

And  whose  hearts  Thy  love  controls, 
Thou  art  pouring  down  from  Heaven 

Light  celestial  on  our  souls. 


HYMNS.  133 

Now  our  hearts  no  sorrows  sudden. 

They  can  know  no  painful  fears. 
Though  our  eves  no  sunbeams  gladden. 

They  shall  stream  no  more  with  tears. * 


*  "The  eyes,  which  are  never  gladdened  by  light,  should 
never  stream  with  tears." — Sydney  Smith. 


mm 

'411 

HR 


MSB  RHHi 


